Stake My Heart
by The Doctor's Charlene
Summary: Moving to a new place is hard on everyone, especially for someone who didn't want to move in the first place. Meet Rowen Matthews, a hard headed and stubborn teenager, who is forced by her parents to live with her brother, Max Matthews along with his wife and daughter, in a place called Mystic Falls after getting suspended from school for fighting. More inside... OC/?
1. Pilot

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Vampire Diaries and never will because if I did, the show would have ended after season three. But I do own Rowen Matthews and any other characters that I make up.

 **Summary:** Moving to a new place is hard on everyone, especially for someone who didn't want to move in the first place. Meet Rowen Matthews, a hard headed and stubborn teenager, who is forced by her parents to live with her brother, Max Matthews and his wife and daughter, in a place called Mystic Falls after getting suspended from school for fighting. To say she's bitter about it is an understatement. But her opinion does change after finding a friend in Bonnie Bennett. Though she does have a secret, a secret that she never told anyone, not even her parents, who she wouldn't tell anyway. Rowen's a vampire hunter. Something that causes problems, especially with Stefan and Damon Salvatore in town. OC/?

 **A/N:** This story I posted a long time ago and decided to post it again because I looked back on it and really enjoyed rereading it so yeah. But she has a new name. Her name now is Rowen Matthews and she's faced by someone else now and that's Krysten Ritter, who plays Jessica Jones on the Netflix show of the same name :) Looking back, I think she's the perfect one to play her. Also, I'll try to update this story as much as I can after I post the completed chapters since, but no promise since I have other stories I'm working on too. Anyway, please enjoy and tell me what you think! :D

* * *

 _ **Rowen's POV...**_

Life fucking sucks sometimes, you know… Here am I stuck in a small car with my annoying older brother, Max, on the way to the hellhole I call Mystic Falls, Virginia. My stupid parents sent me to live with Max because I was a dumb ass and got into a fight with the snobby rich bitch Amanda Sawyer. Reminds me of Sawyer from Lost - you know the popular TV show? - Except for the fact that she was a girl and she was the biggest bitch the world has ever had the misfortune to know. I mean seriously, she's such a bitch - even her parents think so – I'm not even joking! Oh, and she wasn't some southern hillbilly like he was.

But anyways, after getting into that fight I got suspended and my parents thought it would be best for me to live with my older brother and his family, thinking that it would help me be more responsible and not a trouble maker. I could clearly remember the day my parents told me I was moving…

 _ **Flashback…**_

 _"Rowen! Come down here!"_

 _I roll my eyes at the sound of my annoying mom's voice calling my name. Yep that's me, Rowen Matthews. I sigh as I close the first Harry Potter book and set it down on the table beside my bed._

 _I climb off of my bed and wobble my way down the stairs. It took me forever to get down there. We had these long stairs that seemed to go on forever. It was like those steps in the first Princess Diaries movie (yep, the ones that you would have thought Princess Mia would have fell off of). I head into the living room only to see my parents sitting on the couch sitting up straight and proper as if they were waiting for the Queen of England to arrive._

 _'_ _As if…' I thought, snorting to myself._

 _I settle myself down on the chair that was across from the small table that was in the middle of the living room. I kick my feet on the table and scowl to myself as I cross my arms over my chest. I ignore the disapproving looks my parents gave my feet because who actually gave a fuck about what they think._

 _"What do you want?" I grumble, wanting to get this over with so I could continue my reading in peace._

 _"We wanted to talk to you," My mom says as she narrowed her eyes at me. "Can you please get your feet off of the table please?" She asks using that fake sweet voice that she used to get what she wanted. Why news flash mother…THAT DOESN'T WORK FOR ME!_

 _"Nah, I think I'll keep them on there," I say cheekily._

 _I patted myself on the back at the look of pure rage on her face. Her face turned as red as a tomato. I stifle a laugh, knowing my mother wouldn't appreciate that._

 _"Just take the feet off," Dad spat at me in a tone that made me want to smack him in the fucking face._

 _"Fine!" I spit back at him. I take my feet off of the table and re-cross my arms over my chest and gave him a look that seemed to say 'happy now?' Dad plastered a smile on his face._

 _"Now then," Dad says calmly as if nothing happened._

 _I grit my teeth together at how fucking calm his voice sounded. "Anytime now would be great Daddy-O." I say in a sarcastic tone that made mom glare at me again._

 _"As you know you older brother Max lives in Mystic Falls now…"_

 _I interrupt him before he could say more, "What the hell is Mystic Falls? I've never heard of that place."_

 _I frown then. Or maybe I have… I shook my head. Nah, why would I know a place like that?_

 _"It's a small town in Virginia," Dad tells me calmly. "And we want you to move there…"_

 _"WHAT?!" I screech as I quickly stood up from my seat. "Why the hell would you send me there?!"_

 _"Sit down," Mom snaps._

 _I immediately sit down. Still too in shock to even notice how easily I listened to her._

 _Then my mom says in a calm voice, "We're sending you there because after that fight with that Amanda girl…we think it would be a great idea for you to go to a new place and make friends with people who actually." Her nose wrinkles in disgust, "Don't do drugs, smoke or drink."_

 _"It would teach you to be responsible like Max," Dad continues._

 _I shake my head in disbelief. This is not fucking happening to me… I glare at my parents as I stood up once more._

 _"I'm not going there, Daniel and Mary!" I exclaim loudly. "You can't make me!"_

 _"Oh yes we can…we're your parents and what we say goes!" Mom yells at me. "And you're going to Mystic Falls even if I have to pull you by the hair and drag you there myself!"_

 _"I HATE YOU!" I scream as I stomp out of the living room and back to my room slamming the door behind me._

 _I flop down on the bed and scream into my pillow wishing that this were some horrible dream…_

 ** _End flashback…_**

But nope, it wasn't a dream. I was still in the car, on the way to Max's house for the rest of my existence.

"So…"

I hear Max say beside me and I peer at him through the curtain of my messy, wavy black hair.

"Are you excited to be here?" he asks.

I snort, "Hell nah. I would much rather be anywhere but here."

"Mystic Falls isn't that bad," Max reassures me. "Who knows you might actually like it here."

"I doubt it," I tell him, snorting again.

Max shook his head at me and I clearly heard him mumble, "No wonder mom and dad sent you here."

I scowl at him but didn't say anything about his comment. Around thirty minutes later, we pulled up in the driveway of a cute, medium-sized house. Fit for around four people to live in. I got out of the car and slam the car door shut. I look around for a few minutes taking in the sights. Most of the houses kind of looked the same but not so much that you would get confused about what house was yours. Something bumped into my shoulder and I look beside me only to see Max standing there.

"What do you think Rowen?" he asks me with a bright smile on his face as he looks over at me.

I shrug a shoulder nonchalantly, "Eh…it's alright."

Max nods at me but let out a sigh as if he knew that was all he was going to be getting.

"Let go inside."

I nod and we both head inside. I was intently greeted with the sound of loud, piecing crying. I knew immediately that it was my niece Desire. Max groans from beside me and I hold back a laugh at the look on his face. Then Max's wife, Elizabeth, appears holding baby Desire in her arms. Thankfully the little girl stopped crying as she now had a bottle in her mouth. I look Lizzie up and down.

She didn't look much different from when I saw her last. She still had that beach blonde hair that was currently in a messy ponytail. She had on sweats and a large t-shirt that was a little bit too big for her tall, lean form. She looked tired if the bags under her eyes were hint enough. Oddly enough I like Elizabeth and it takes a lot for me to like someone, normally months or even years, but not little Miss Lizzie…I immediately took a liking to her- which surprised everyone- especially my mom and dad. I scowl at the thought of my parents. I was still majorly pissed off at them for sending me here.

"Rowen!" Lizzie exclaims happily, breaking me out of the thoughts I was currently having.

"Yo Liz," I say with a grin as she gave me a hug…well as much as you can call a hug since Desire was in Lizzie's arms.

"I'm so happy your here," she gushes to me. She beams as she ran a hand through my black hair, "You're so pretty."

I blush slightly. "Thank you," I say quietly.

"You're welcome honey." She hands Max baby Desire and says to him, "I'm going to show Rowen up to her room."

Max nods and left us, taking Desire into the living room. Once he was gone, Lizzie claps her hands together as she beams at me.

She took hold of my hand and led me up the stairs. We head down the long hallway and stop in front of a room.

"Well here it is," she chirps happily as she opens the door, showing me my new bedroom.

I walk into it and look around. It was a nice room. The bed was made nicely and it wasn't too big or too small. It was just right…as corny as that sounds.

I look at Lizzie and smile at her, "Thanks Lizzie. I really like it."

"Aw! I'm glad." A concerned look appears on her face as she looks over at me and places a hand on my shoulder, "Rowen if you need anything or need to talk to me about something, don't hesitant to tell me."

I blink at her in surprise. Normally people didn't give a damn about if I needed something… especially my parents… I would never tell this but I wish that they cared about me but no, all they cared about was getting me out of there. I bet they were having a party back there now that I was gone.

I nod and smile at her. "I will," I promise her.

Lizzie smiles back at me.

* * *

"Hello?" I say groggily into the phone in the middle of the night.

"Hi baby!"

I scowl to myself, "Dammit Joey! Why the hell did you have to call me in the middle of the night?!" I manage to keep my voice down.

Joey Sanders was one of my best friends back home. He was an awesome friend but not at this moment. I was sleepy and I hated it when people woke me up from my beauty sleep.

"Let me go back to sleep," I snap. "I'll call you when I'm actually awake." I then roll my eyes at the loud booming laugh on the other end of the phone.

"Alright, alright," Joey says between laughs. "Talk to you later babes."

After saying a quiet bye, I click the phone off and gently toss it on the table next to my bedside. I sigh as I fall back into a deep sleep.

It was in the middle of the day when I woke up again. I was just thankful that it was the weekend so I had two days of free time before I go to school on Monday. After getting dressed, I head downstairs and go into the kitchen where Max, Lizzie, and Desire are.

"Hi," I manage to say through a yawn as I sat in the stool.

Lizzie smiles at me, "Good afternoon Rowen. Did you sleep well?"

"It was alright," I tell her as honestly as I could. I sigh as I ran a hand through my messy unkempt hair that I didn't want to brush, "Have mom and dad called?" I ask as I look over at Max.

Max shook his head. "No they haven't," he replies. "I'm sure they'll call sometime today."

"Not bloody likely," I mutter angrily under my breath, looking down at the counter top as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. Because of this, I didn't see the concerned looks Max and Lizzie shared with one another.

A buzzing sound from my pocket interrupts me from my dark thoughts. Looking at the caller ID, I saw that it was Joey who was calling me. I press talk and put the phone to my ear.

"Hi Joe," I greet him with a sort of forced happiness.

"Aw Roro, I thought you would be happy to hear from me," Joey jokes with a fake sad tone of voice.

I roll my eyes unable to help the smile that appears on my lips at the joke, "You're not funny Joe," I say, a slight laugh in my voice.

"Ah, but I made you laugh didn't I?" Joey teases.

I shake my head. "I should go Joe," I tell him. "I'll call you later."

"I miss you Roro," Joey says in a soft voice. "Don't treat your brother too badly."

I glance at my brother and nod even though Joey couldn't see it. "No worries about that," I say. I then tell him in a quiet voice, "I miss you too."

"You better," Joey jokes. "See you Roro."

I click off my phone and look at Lizzie who had this great big grin on her face. I blink at her wondering what she was grinning about.

"So…who was that?" Lizzie asks, still grinning at me.

"Uh… my friend Joey…" I reply.

"Is he your boyfriend?"

My eyes widen and I shake my head frantically. "No we're just friends," I tell her.

"Sure you are," Lizzie says in a singsong voice before winking at me.

I roll my eyes, "Seriously Lizzie, we're just friends…nothing more." I look at Max who looks amused and I glare at him and he laughs loudly for some off reason.

Once he finished laughing, Max nudges Lizzie in the side, "Stop teasing my little sister Lizzie. If she says they're not dating then they're not dating."

Lizzie pouts at him. "I was just playing around Max," she says continuing to pout as she rolls her eyes at him.

"Sure you were," Max says in the same singsong voice that Lizzie used.

Lizzie went to slap him but he quickly moved out of the way. He laughs as he heads out of the kitchen. I look at Lizzie who was looking after her husband with a loving look on her face. You could tell by that one look how much Lizzie loved my brother and the way that Max looks at her, you can tell he feels the same way. I don't think I've ever seen my parents look at each other like that. My thoughts break by the sound of Lizzie's voice.

"So…I was thinking that we go shopping for clothes for when you go school on Monday."

"Yeah that sounds good," I tell her as I force a smile on my face.

I wasn't much for shopping. In fact I hated it. But seeing the pleading look on Lizzie's face, I couldn't help but say yes. I know that was weak and I was no means a weak girl. I could handle myself. I blame it for the fact that I actually like Lizzie.

"Great!" Lizzie exclaims, clapping her hands together as she beams at me happily. She then calls out to Max, who I guess was in the living room. "Honey! Rowen and I are going shopping! Can you take care of Desi while we're gone?!"

"Sure babe!" Max calls back. There was silence for a minute but then he calls out again, "Oh and remember we're having dinner with Jenna and her niece and nephew!"

Lizzie smacks her head and I chuckle silently to myself. Obviously she had forgotten about the dinner…

"Uh, right, I remember," Lizzie says in a loud voice so Max could still hear her. "We'll see you later."

"Alright have fun!"

As we left the house, I look at Lizzie.

"Who's Jenna?" I ask.

"She's our neighbor," Lizzie answers. "She lives right next door and her niece and nephew lives with her."

I didn't say anything but I did wonder why those two were living with their aunt and not their parents.

Lizzie grabs her car keys out of her purse once we were to her car, a blue mini cooper, and hits the unlock button. I climb into the passenger not bothering putting on my seat belt… I never did anyways.

"Seat belt," Lizzie tells me in a stern voice.

I open my mouth to protest but the stern look on my brother's wife's face stops me. I shut my mouth with a silent click and I grumble under my breath as I buckle my seatbelt.

Sinking down in the seat, I cross my arms over my chest and close my eyes quickly falling into a deep sleep.

I let out a sharp gasp as I was suddenly pulled away from the dream of having. My forehead wrinkles in confusion. What a weird ass dream… There was this man I had dreamt about. He's been in my dreams before but it's been a long time since he's been in them. I shake my head and decide not think about it. I look at Lizzie.

"Are we at the mall yet?" I ask.

Lizzie nods with a smile on her face, "Yeah…we're here. You woke up just in time." She tells me with a grin.

"Fantastic," I say dryly with a slight sarcastic undertone.

"It is, isn't it?" Lizzie agrees, a sparkle in her eyes, obviously she didn't know I was being sarcastic about it.

Hiding a grin, I get out of the car at the same as Lizzie does.

 _'Let get this over with.'_ I thought to myself as we start walking up to the mall. I hoped that this wouldn't last long.

 _A couple hours later…_

 _'_ _Damn this girl could shop_!' I thought, grunting as I lug multiple shopping bags over to Lizzie's car.

I was never going shopping with this woman ever again. And I thought my mom was bad with the whole shopping thing. Most of this stuff in the bags weren't even for me. I had only one bag that was from Hot Topic and it only had a couple shirts in it.

"That was so much fun," Lizzie gushes to me as we drive out of the mall parking lot.

I force a smile, "Yeah it was great Lizzie." I lean my head back and fall back to sleep…again.

The mystery man wasn't in my dreams this time. When I woke up once more from my nap, I couldn't help but be slightly disappointed by this fact.

* * *

I look at myself in the mirror of my bathroom. I sigh as I brush off invisible lint from my black dress I had on. I look pretty decent looking for a dinner over at neighbor house. Why did I even have to wear a dress? I was more of jeans type of girl but nope Lizzie had to force me into this dress. I still had at least thirty minutes before we had to go so I open up my laptop (which was sitting on the desk that was in my room) only to be met by the smiling face of Joey. He was the typical boy next door. He had blonde hair, a cute baby face, and blue eyes. Girls at my school though he was adorable and he was … but so not the type for me. I was more into the bad boy type but he was a good buddy to have.

He looked ecstatic to see me. I smile gently at him.

"Hi Joey," I tell him. "I can't talk for long; I have a stupid dinner I have to go." I roll my eyes to show how annoyed I was by this fact. I hated meeting new people and Joe knew that first hand.

"I'm sure it won't be too bad, Roro," he tells me. "Who knows, you might actually like these people."

I flash him a look of disbelief, "You do know who you're talking to right?"

Joey laughs. "Of course I do," he says. "You're Rowen Elizabeth Matthews, the girl who doesn't give a shit about anything or anyone." He then smiles at me cheekily, "Except for me of course."

"Keep telling yourself that sweetheart," I say to him sarcastically.

"Oh I will," Joey tells me smugly.

I open my mouth to say more to him but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Then a second later, I hear Lizzie call through the door.

"We're leaving Rowen!"

"Okay!" I call back before I look back at Joey and roll my eyes, "Well, here I go to my doom. See ya Joe."

"Have fun!"

"I doubt it," I say in a singsong voice. I laugh as I close my laptop and leave my room, shutting the door behind me.

* * *

I stood beside Lizzie as we stood in front of the next-door neighbor's house. I sigh internally to myself as I cross my fingers behind my back, hoping that this would be over with quickly and painlessly. Max knocks on the door and we only had to wait a couple minutes before a young girl who looks close to my age opened it. I look the girl up and down. She had long straight brown hair that I guess went to almost the middle of her back, brown eyes, a tan skinned tone, and she had a smile on her face as she looks at us.

"Hi Lizzie," The girls says with the smile still on her face. But I couldn't help but notice that beneath the smile, there was a sad look in her eyes as if she was forcing the smile. "Where's Desire?"

"She's over at her grandma's house," Lizzie tells her. She looks to me, "Elena…this is Max's little sister, Rowen."

The girl or now known as Elena looks at me and smiles, "Hi, it's nice to meet you, Rowen." She gestured inside her house. "Uh…come on in."

We walk into the house as I look around the inside of it. It was pretty nice from the inside. I like the feel of it.

"The kitchen's this way," Elena says and we follow her into the large kitchen.

Sitting on the counter top was a woman holding onto a glass of wine. I wonder who she is but thankfully I didn't have to wait long to find out.

"Jenna!" Lizzie calls from beside me.

The woman, now known as Jenna, looks over and grins at the sight of Lizzie.

"Lizzie," Jenna says brightly as she hops off the counter- without spilling her wine- and made her way over to us. As soon as she was, Jenna gives Lizzie and Max a hug, "It's nice to see you guys." She says to Lizzie and Max before she looks over at me. "This must be Rowen."

I smile weakly, not wanting to be here. "Nice to meet you, Jenna." I needed to go the bathroom, so I asked, "Where's the bathroom?"

Jenna tells me it's upstairs and that it was easy to find and what she said was true, it was easy to find. I did my business, left the bathroom, and head downstairs to finish the boring dinner.

* * *

"So what did you think of Elena, Jenna, and Jeremy?" Lizzie asks me as we enter the house after the dinner.

I shrug a shoulder. "They were alright," I reply. "That Elena girl annoys me though."

"Oh," Lizzie mutters to herself.

We stop at the end of the steps and I tell Max and Lizzie goodnight before heading up to my room. After I get on my pajamas, I climb into my bed immediately falling asleep.

* * *

It was now Monday and it was finally time to go to school. I growl to myself, annoyed as I sat in the passenger seat of Lizzie's mini cooper. I hated school. I just didn't see the point of it. Besides, teachers didn't like me and I didn't like them. I ignore Lizzie as she chats animatedly on the way to school.

"Oh you're going to love going to school in Mystic Falls, my high school days were the best days of my life…I made great friends. That's how I met Jenna. We were best friends, we did everything together. I was also close to Miranda, who was Jenna's sister."

"Is Miranda Elena and Jeremy's mom?" I ask. At her nod, I ask her, "What happened to her?"

Lizzie's eyes glaze over in sadness, "Oh… Miranda died in a car crash. So was their father, and Elena was in the car when it happened. She hasn't been the same since then. It was close to the end of summer that they died. Jeremy hasn't been the same either. All he does is drink and do drugs. But I guess it's mostly because of the people he hangs out with." She glances over at me with a stern look on her face, "It would be best if you stay away from Vicki Donavan. She isn't the kind of person you should hang out with."

"Oh," I say not knowing what to say to that and nothing else was said until we finally made it to the school.

I get out of the car and turn to face Lizzie who was still in the car.

"Have a good day at school," she tells me.

I nod and force a smile. She smiles back at me before driving away. I took a deep breath as I turn to face the school. Here I go to my personal hell.

I glare at every person who gives me a look, putting as much anger in the glare as I could. It worked because everyone stopped looking at me.

I smirk to myself. I finally enter the school and head to the office. Making it to the office I noticed that Elena Gilbert was standing outside of the office staring at someone with some other girl who I guess was one of her friends. She noticed me too but didn't say anything to me. I wasn't mad about that fact. I didn't personally like this girl…but I did feel sorry for her for losing her parents. I finally enter the office and see that the secretary was talking to someone else causing me to stop in my spot. Even though I couldn't see his face, I could already tell that he was going to be cute.

Once he finishes talking to the secretary, he turns around and actually freezes when he sees me. I stood there awkwardly under his gaze, though his eyes were covered by black sunglasses, I had a feeling that he was looking at me as if he knew who I was. I shook my head knowing that was impossible. Finally the boy moves and leaves the office without looking at me. I turn to watch him leave.

Elena wasn't out there anymore but the other girl was and she had watched the guy leave as well. As if she felt that I was staring at her, the girl looks at me for just a second before following the guy. I frown to myself. Well that was weird… I shook my head internally as I go over to the front desk casing the woman behind it to look at me. She smiles at me brightly and I force a smile and pretend to act happy to be here.

"Hello," she greets. "Who are you? Are you new?"

I nod, "Yeah…I'm, uh, Rowen Matthews."

The woman's smile widened. "Oh Max's little sister," she says and I nod wondering how she knew my brother. "I'm Lydia. I dated your brother before in High School."

"Okay," I say slowly. Why would she tell me that?

"Yep," Lydia says brightly. "Let me get your schedule."

"Thank you," I tell her quietly.

A couple minutes later, she pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to me. I look down at it taking my classes. My first class was History with someone called Mr. William Tanner… I groan silently to myself. I just had to have my worst subject as my first class of the day.

I grumble to myself as I head to class. Once there, I'm met with the sight of the teacher who was sitting behind his desk. There was no other student in the room so it was just the teacher and I. The teacher stands up and goes over to me. Once he was to me, he holds out his hand.

"Hello," he says as he holds out a hand towards me. "I'm Mr. Tanner, you must be Rowen."

I nod and force a smile as I shake his hand. "Yeah, that's me," I tell him. I let his hand go with the forced smile still on my face. "It's nice to meet you." The last part is a lie; I could already tell that I wouldn't like my History teacher.

Mr. Tanner nods, "You can go pick out a seat anywhere you want."

I nod as I head over to one of the many seats in the class and settle down in the seat that I picked. It was close to the front of the classroom. I like sitting in the front because people wouldn't bother me and ask me questions. Which I knew was bound to come up since I was the new student in Mystic Falls. I hate replying to questions especially if it had something to do with my personal life.

I didn't pay much attention to the students that enter the room. I felt a tap on my shoulder and I look up only to meet the eyes of Elena Gilbert.

"Hi Rowen," Elena greets.

I force a happy smile. "Elena," I say with fake brightness. "Who knew we would be in the same History class?"

Elena nods, "Yeah. Oh…this is my friend Bonnie Bennett."

I look next to Elena and see the same girl that I saw outside of the office next to Elena. Bonnie smiles at me and I smile back at her, oddly this smile wasn't forced as the one I gave to Elena. There was something about this girl I liked, oddly enough.

"Rowen, it's nice to meet you," she tells me.

I nod and smile, "You too Bonnie."

Bonnie smiles at me before her and Elena go and find their own seats. Everyone gathered in the classroom- even the guy who was in the office, whom Mr. Tanner introduced as Stefan Salvatore. He was new to the school just like I was, Mr. Tanner began teaching. I took out of my notebook and grab a pencil. I went to an empty page and began to write. It wasn't notes. I decided to doddle inside, knowing that I wasn't going to be paying attention in class. But I glance up anyway just as Mr. Tanner speaks.

"Once our home state of Virginia joined the confederacy in 1861, it created a tremendous amount of tension within the state. People in Virginia's northwest region had different ideals then those from the traditional Deep South. The Virginia divided in 1863 with the northwest region joining the unison…"

I yawn loudly, getting the attention of people in the classroom. Feeling people staring at me, I glance around meeting the eyes of Stefan Salvatore who was looking at me oddly. I gave him a heated glare causing his gaze to look away from me. I smirk to myself. I despised it when people stared at me. I mean rude much? I then look at Mr. Tanner who was glaring at me.

I smile and blink at him innocently, "Oh I'm sorry Mr. Tanner. Please continue this gripping lesson." My voice drips with sarcasm causing the students into the room to laugh quietly to themselves.

Mr. Tanner's glare deepens but he quickly went back to teaching. I hum happily to myself as I went back to my doodling until the class was over. I pack up my stuff in silence and I turn around suddenly when I felt someone tap my shoulder. It turned out to be Bonnie. I fix my bag over my shoulder as I smile at her.

"Hey," Bonnie greets me with a smile. "I was wondering if you would like to come to the Grill with me and my friend after school."

I look at her surprised. People didn't usually invite me to things. They usually stayed as far away from me as possible…

"Are you okay?"

Bonnie's concerned voice snaps me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I tell her reassuringly. I smile, "Yeah that sounds good."

"Great," Bonnie says brightly. "Give me your phone number and address and I'll come pick you up."

"Sure." I tear out a piece of paper from my notebook and wrote down my cell number and my address. I hand it to her and she looks down at it for moment before she looks back up at me surprised.

"Oh! You live next to Elena," Bonnie says and I nod.

"Yeah, I'm living with my brother Max and his wife Lizzie," I explain.

Bonnie smiles, "Oh cool. I'll see you later then." She sounds hopeful.

I smile back. "Yeah, I'll be there," I tell her.

Bonnie's smile brightens and she pats me on the shoulder. We walk out of the History classroom together and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I had a friend. It was a feeling that I didn't want to go away.

* * *

Finally school was over and I climb into the passenger seat of Lizzie's mini cooper. We drove away from the school and Lizzie speaks up as she keeps her eye on the road.

"So how was your first day of school?" she asks.

"It was surprisingly great actually," I tell her honestly.

It was the truth. I actually had a good time at school. After leaving the History classroom with Bonnie, we shared our schedules and we were both surprised to find that we had all the same classes. Weirdly enough…

"Really?" Lizzie sounds surprised but happy.

I chuckle, "Why do you sound so surprised?"

"Because Max told me you hate school with a passion so I just figured," Lizzie mumbles to herself but I could still hear her.

"I do," I say. "But I think that I'm going to enjoy school in Mystic Falls." This was the truth. I had a feeling that being here was going to change my life in ways that I wouldn't expect...

* * *

"Rowen! Bonnie's here!" I hear Lizzie call from downstairs as I finish brushing my hair.

After getting home, I changed into something different to wear out with Bonnie and her friend Caroline Forbes. My style was completely different when I wasn't at school. For school, I usually wear clothes that listen to the dress code but then when I get home, I always changed out my school clothes. Right now I was wearing a bright red long sleeved off the shoulder cropped top, a pair of shorts but underneath the short was some black leggings, and for shoes I wore a pair of black flip flops.

"Rowen! Did you hear me?!" I hear Lizzie call again.

"Yeah, I'll be down in a minute," I call back to her as I pull my hair up in a ponytail.

I went out the door after doing this- but not before grabbing a jacket just in case it got cold. I head downstairs and into the living room where I heard laughing. There was Bonnie sitting on the couch with Lizzie laughing at something she said. Since they didn't notice me, I slip on the jacket just in case Lizzie didn't like the way I was dressing. I clear my throat and they look at me. Bonnie smiles as she stands up from the couch.

"Hi, Rowen," she greets me, going over to me with Lizzie behind her. "Are you ready to go?"

I nod and smile, "Yeah. I'm ready." I look around for a moment and wonder where her friend is and with that thought in mind, I ask, "Where's your friend?"

"She's in the car," Bonnie tells me.

"Oh," I say not knowing what else to say besides that. I look at Lizzie; "I'll see you later."

Lizzie smiles. "Alright, have a good time," she tells me.

"I will," I say with a nod.

"Bye Lizzie."

Bonnie and I smile at Lizzie one last time and head out the door. Immediately I took off the jacket revealing my outfit. Bonnie raises an eyebrow at me.

"Why did you change your clothes?" she asks me.

"That's what I usually do when I get home from school, I change. Because I wear different clothes." I laugh as I gesture to my outfit, "I don't really think this state of dress will go over well."

Bonnie laughs, "That's true. But they don't really care, really what you wear. It's weird because most schools do care."

I couldn't help but laugh too. I open my mouth to say more to her when we hear someone call,

"Come on! Hurry it up!" The sound came from a car that was parked in front of my new house. A blonde was in the passenger seat, looking out the window at us. She looked impatient.

"Is that Caroline?" I ask Bonnie who nods.

"Yeah, that's her," Bonnie replies. "We better go before her heads explodes." She jokes causing me to laugh and her to laugh with me.

Still laughing, we start walking over to Bonnie's care. Once there, I climb into the back seat while Bonnie sits down in the driver's seat. Caroline turns to me with a bright smile on her as Bonnie starts the car.

"Hi, I'm Caroline," she tells me brightly.

I smile at her immediately liking this girl already. She reminds me of Lizzie and since I liked Lizzie, I'm guessing that's why I liked Caroline.

"Hey, it's nice to meet you."

"You too," Caroline says brightly before facing forward, chatting animatedly to Bonnie. "Is Elena going to meet up with us at the Grill?"

"No, I think she said something about going to write in the grave year," Bonnie tells her.

I didn't have to look at Caroline to know that she had rolled her eyes at what Bonnie said.

"Geez, I thought she was over that," Caroline says annoyed.

Bonnie gave Caroline a look, "Hey be nice. You know as well as I do that Elena's still not over her parent's death."

"I know that," Caroline drawls out, now sounding annoyed. "But it's been months since the car accident. She needs to move on. She can't be sad girl forever."

Bonnie sighs, "I know."

The silence was now tense and I look around awkwardly for a moment to find something to talk about.

"So, what's the Mystic Grill like?" I finally ask.

This breaks the tense silence and Caroline and Bonnie take turns telling me about the Grill. It was the one place that all the teenagers from their school went to so that they could hang out. Reminds me of The Hub from 'That 70s Show'. By the time they finish telling me about it, we finally arrive at the Grill. Bonnie parks the car and we all get out talking to each other. As soon as we entered the Grill, Caroline began talking about Stefan Salvatore, the one who had the staring problem.

"His name is Stefan Salvatore. He lives with his uncle up at the old Salvatore boarding house. He hasn't lived here since he was a kid. Military family, so they moved around a lot. He's a Gemini, and his favorite color is blue."

I look surprised. "Did you get this all in one day?"

"Oh please, I got all of this between third and fourth period," Caroline says with laugh as we sit down at one of the many tables in the Grill. "We're planning a June wedding by the way."

Bonnie and I look at each other amused as Caroline went on and on about the details for her and Stefan's future wedding. Bonnie leans towards me and whispers in my ear,

"I think Stefan's interested in Elena."

My face screws up. Ew, really? What was so interesting about Elena that got him interested in her? No offense to her or anything but I didn't see it. I don't tell Bonnie this of course because I had a feeling she wouldn't take to it well, and I didn't want to lose her friendship. Because as of right now, she was the only friend I had…well maybe Caroline. She seems to like me well enough. Caroline finally stops talking just as Bonnie speaks up.

"I'll be right back," she tells us.

Caroline and I nod and watch her walk off towards a boy with blonde hair who reminds me of Joey.

"Who's that?" I ask Caroline.

"Matt Donavan, Quarterback of the Football team, everyone has a crush on him and he used to date Elena," Caroline replies.

I watch Bonnie talk to Matt as I ask Caroline, "Why did he and Elena break up?"

"After her parents died, Elena broke up with Matt because she wanted to be alone to deal with her parent's death. He was completely heartbroken about it and it's so obvious he still has feelings for her. But poor Matt Elena doesn't feel the same." Her face turns slightly sad, "I feel bad for him because I don't think him and Elena will get back together."

"Oh, that's too bad," I say. Though I haven't met this Matt, I felt bad for him. It must suck to still have feelings for someone who you broke up with and will probably never get back together.

It was then that Stefan and Elena enters the Grill and I look at Caroline whose face is bright and happy at the sight of Stefan. I wince. I hope that Caroline didn't take it too badly when she learns of Stefan's interest in Elena. A while later Stefan and Elena are sitting with Bonnie, Caroline, and me. Stefan did stare at me for a couple minutes and I had to force myself not to smack him in the face to get him to stop staring at me. I didn't even know why he was doing this but I wanted him to stop. Thankfully Caroline speaks up causing Stefan to look away from me and at her.

"So, you were born in Mystic Falls."

Stefan nods, "Mm-hmm. And moved when I was still young."

"Parents?" Bonnie asks.

"My parents passed away."

Elena immediately looks at him with a sad look on her face, "I'm sorry. Any siblings?"

"None that I talk to," Stefan replies. "I live with my uncle."

Caroline changes the subject, "So Stefan, if your new, then you don't know about the party tomorrow."

Stefan looks confused and so did I and Bonnie explains when she sees the confused looks.

"It's a back to school thing at the Falls," she tells her.

"Are you going?" Stefan looks at Elena intently as he asked this.

Elena opens her mouth to reply but Bonnie beats her to it.

"Of course she is," Bonnie says quickly. I look at Caroline to see a pissed off look on her face, but I didn't say anything. But she quickly shakes out of it and looks at me.

"Are you going to go?" Caroline asks me, sounding hopeful.

"Yeah, that sounds good to me," I reply and I look at Stefan who was staring at me again. I scowl at him and made an annoyed sound before I look away from him, still scowling to myself.

* * *

Before I knew it, I was back at home sitting on my bed, on the phone with Joey. It was around 10 o'clock at night and I was in my pajamas.

"Wow, you actually made a friend." Joey sounds amazed but it was in a joking tone.

I scowl to myself, "Oh don't sound so amazed. I can make friends."

Joey chuckles on the other end of the phone. "If you say so Roro," he tells me but I knew he didn't mean it.

"Yeah, yeah." I roll my eyes. "Anyway…I should go to bed. Another day at school tomorrow."

"Alright. Love you Roro."

"Love you too Joe." I hung up the phone after that and got under the covers, resting my head on my pillow. It took me a while but I finally went to sleep, my dreams filled with my mystery man.

* * *

 _'_ _Another boring day in History class!'_ I thought to myself with a tired sigh as I look at Mr. Tanner who was busily teaching…unfortunately. Seriously, he had to be the most boring teacher ever. Even the jocks in the classroom weren't even paying attention. Sitting here in my seat in the front, I wish that I had chosen to sit somewhere else like next to Bonnie or something but she was already sitting next to Elena. I snap out of thoughts by Mr. Tanner speaking.

"The Battle of Willow Creek took place right at the end of the war in our very own Mystic Falls," he says, looking around at everyone. "How many casualties resulted in this battle? Ms. Bennett?"

I look at my friend who looks nervous but Bonnie managed to speak.

"Um, a lot?" Bonnie says unsure. "I'm not sure. A whole lot."

I look back at Mr. Tanner who doesn't look amused.

"Cute becomes dumb in an instant, Ms. Bennett," he says dryly.

My eyes narrow at him at the comment but he didn't take notice to it as he looks at Matt.

"Mr. Donavan? Would you like to take this opportunity to overcome your embedded jock stereotype?" Mr. Tanner asks.

"It's okay, Mr. Tanner, I'm cool with it," Matt says sounding completely serious causing the other students to snicker quietly to themselves, well expect me, I laugh loudly at the statement Matt made which causes Mr. Tanner to glare at me.

"Since you find this so funny Ms. Matthews, surely you can enlighten us about one of the town's most significantly historical events?" he says.

I look at him in disbelief, "Seriously? I'm new here, how the heck am I supposed to know that? It's not like I read the history of this small town before moving. Geez." I roll my eyes annoyed.

Mr. Tanner's glare hardens but I ignore him as he looks over at Elena.

"Then maybe you can answer this, Elena? What was one of the town's most significantly historical events?"

"I'm sorry, I—I don't know," Elena admits looking sheepish.

Mr. Tanner now looks stern but also annoyed, "I was willing to be lenient last year for obvious reasons Elena. But the personal excuses ended with summer break."

"Harsh much," I mutter to myself not knowing that Stefan had heard me and had an amused look on his face.

"There were 36 casualties," Stefan speaks up causing Mr. Tanner to look at him. "Unless you're counting local civilians."

"That's correct Mr.…?"

"Salvatore."

"Salvatore," Mr. Tanner repeats with interest in his voice. "Any relation to the original settlers here at Mystic falls?"

Stefan nods, "Distant."

"Well, very good," Mr. Tanner says but he didn't look impressed that Stefan had known the answer. "But there were no civilian casualties in this battle."

"Actually there were 27, sir. Confederate soldiers, they fired on the church, believing it to be housing. Weapons. They were wrong. It was a great loss. The founder's archives are, uh, stored in civil hall if you'd like to brush up on your history Mr. Tanner."

Mr. Tanner looks annoyed and he didn't say anything. I had to hold back a laugh. Though Stefan didn't mean it, it sounded like an insult. Maybe this Stefan Salvatore isn't as bad as I thought…

* * *

"So you are coming to the back to school party, right?" Bonnie asks me after school was over. She was walking with me to get to Lizzie's car in the parking lot.

"Yeah, I'm going," I tell her. "I wouldn't miss it."

Bonnie beams at me, "Good." We stop in front of Lizzie's car and Lizzie, who was out of the car and standing beside it, smiles at both of us.

"Hey girls," she greets brightly. "Did you have a good day at school?"

Bonnie nods, "Yes Mrs. Matthews."

Lizzie laughs. "No need to sound so formal Bonnie," she tells her. "Lizzie is just fine."

"Alright," Bonnie agrees with a smile. She looks over at me, "I'll see you at the back to school party."

"Sounds good." I give her a friendly hug and she hugs me back immediately. I smile at her as I break the hug and I get into the car. With one final wave to Bon, Lizzie starts the car and drives away.

 _Skips to after the party..._

The party was interesting to say the least. Some kind of animal attacked the girl that Lizzie warned me about, Vicki Donavan. But I saw the bite mark; it looked nothing like an animal bite. I have seen pictures of animal bites and none of them look like that. I learned from Bonnie that this wasn't the first time this had happened. But anyway, now I was sitting at a table with Bonnie and Caroline who was drunk and was upset. I had a feeling that it was about Stefan and about that Stefan was more interested in Elena than her…

"Why didn't he go for me?" Caroline asks us with an upset look on her face. "You know, how come the guys that I want never want me?"

"I'm not touching that," Bonnie tells her bluntly.

"Caroline, you shouldn't worry about it," I say to my blonde friend as I touch her on the shoulder. "You're a great girl…if Stefan's not interested in you, it's his loss."

Caroline sighs and looks at me with tears in her eyes, "But still." She looks back at Bonnie but I kept my hand on her shoulder and rub it in comfort as she continues to speak, "I'm inappropriate, I always say the wrong thing. And Elena…she always says the right thing. She doesn't even try! And he just picks her. And she's always the one that everyone picks for everything. And I try so hard, and I'm…never the one."

I could tell that she was trying not to cry when she told us this. I wish I could do something to help but I didn't know what I could do.

"It's not a completion, Caroline," Bonnie says.

"Yes it is," Caroline snaps as she looks away from her friend causing Bonnie to sigh.

Bonnie stands up, "I'm going to go. I'll see you two later." She puts her bag over her shoulder and she walks away leaving me alone with the upset Caroline.

But as soon as Bonnie was gone, Caroline looks over at me. "I'm going to go too," she says softly. "See you."

I nod, "Alright…but don't drive, okay? Call for a cab or something."

"I will." Caroline smiles at me but it was a sad one. It looked so weird to see Caroline not happy. Though I didn't know her for very long, it just looks wrong to see her sad.

I watch her walk away. As I watch her, I can feel someone staring at me. I roll my eyes, hoping beyond hope that it wasn't Stefan. But when I look, my eyes widen. No…way… It was my mystery guy from my dreams. I look at him amazed as he gives me a smile. I was too shocked to smile back which causes my dream guy's smile to turn into a smirk. I just sat there, staring at him. He stared back at me with that sexy smirk still on his face. I want to go over there, talk to him, and find out his name. And I end up doing just that. I go over to him and sit down in the seat beside him.

"Hi," I say to him with a smile.

The guy continues to smirk at me, "Hi."

Nothing was said after that. We just stare at each other. It was like I was in a trance and I just couldn't look away from him. My mystery dream guy was even hotter in person. Finally I speak.

"I'm Rowen," I tell him.

"Damon Salvatore."

I look surprised, "Salvatore as in Stefan Salvatore?"

"Yep. That's my brother."

I now look confused. But I thought Stefan said that he didn't have any siblings? But then I remember that he had said that he had none that he talked to. I guess something happened with Stefan and Damon to make them not talk to each other.

"Oh, he didn't tell us he had a brother." I say.

Damon smirks again, "Well, he doesn't like to brag."

"Right," I say slowly.

Then Damon looks me right in the eye and says, "Come with me."

I don't hesitant because for some reason I felt like I could trust him and I follow him outside with my bag over my shoulder. But that ended as soon as we were outside of the Grill because Damon presses me against the wall with his face changed into that of what I usually saw in movies. This causes me to drop my bag and I try to get out of Damon's grip when I finally did, I grab my bag quickly and I pull out a stake from my bag without him seeing. Then I turn around quickly and Damon charges at me with his face still changed. In one quick motion, I stab him in the stomach with the stake as hard as I could. Damon gasps in pain and he falls to the ground backwards. He looks at me with disbelief written all of his face.

"You should watch out, vampire, next time I stick the stake straight into your heart!" I growl at him.

Going over to him, I pull the stake out of his stomach causing him to gasp out in pain. I look at him for a moment before turning a heel and I walk away. Oh…did I forget to mention that I hunt vampires? Oops.

* * *

 **TBC...**

 **In...**

 **Night of the Comet...**

 **Review? ;)**

 **P.S. There is going to be romance for Rowen with a lot of characters on the show but as for the endgame, who knows who she'll end up with ;) It will be one of the main characters, that's for sure. But I'd love to know who you would want Rowen to end up with, so tell me in your review! Until next time on SMH! :D**


	2. Night of the Comet

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Vampire Diaries and never will because if I did, the show would have ended after season three. But I do own Rowen Matthews and any other characters that I make up.

 **A/N:** Thanks for the reviews! To show you how thankful I am, here's the Night of the Comet episode! Enjoy!

* * *

 ** _Flashback, North Carolina, 2 years ago…_**

 ** _Rowen's POV..._**

 _I ran through the woods near my neighborhood in North Caroline as fast as I could, trying to keep away from the creature that was chasing me. My heart pounds against my chest as I run and I try my best not to trip and fall. But my best wasn't good enough because two minutes later, I trip over a branch and fall to the ground face first. I groan as I flip onto my back and I get off of the ground but before I could run, the creature I was running from jumps in front of me with a smirk on his face._

 _"Leave me alone!" I scream loudly as I take steps back but he kept on walking towards me._

 _I gulp when he gets so close to me that I can feel his horrid breath in my face. He smirks at me as he ran a finger down my cheek and I held my breath waiting for the worst._

 _"You're so beautiful," he whispers. "I wonder what you taste like." He leans forward and buries his face into my neck breathing in my scent._

 _I force myself not to move because I did, I knew that something bad would happen so I just let him sniff me and my hands clench into fists and I close my eyes tightly as I wish that I could push him away from me. I felt so weak… normally I wouldn't call myself weak but at this moment I felt exactly that. Finally he pulls back and there's a smirk on his face._

 _"Just as I thought," The man says as he licks his lips in delight. "You smell delicious…just one bite." His face changes right before my eyes and I scream as I quickly turn a heel to run but it's too late._

 _The man jumps onto of me and I fell to the ground and try to push him off of me but he was too strong. Throwing his head back and biting into my neck, I scream as he sucks on my neck. I start to feel weak but then suddenly the man's body was off of me and my eyes flew open. I gasp at the sight of the monster being pressed against a tree by another man. My eye widen as I watch the man who was holding the other man down pull out a wooden stick and the man slams the stick into the other man's chest. Immediately the man who was pressed against the tree crumbles up and the other man took a step back and let the man against the tree fall to the ground._

 _"Shit," I whisper to myself, as I look wide-eyed at the now dead guy. What kind of creature was that? I look at the man who killed the one that attacked me and he looks at me. My eyes widen in shock. It was my history teacher…_

 _"Mr. Saltzman," I breathe out in shock._

 _Mr. Saltzman looks at me sheepish, "Hey Rowen."_

 _I shake my head in disbelief. What the hell was going on?_

 ** _End Flashback, Present Day, Mystic Falls…_**

I sigh to myself as I splash water in my face in the morning before school. That was an interesting encounter last night. I didn't think that I would have an encounter with a vampire. I thought I left that when I moved over here to Mystic Falls. Apparently not… I roll my eyes as I exit the bathroom. When I was in my room, I sat on the bed and thought about what happened last night.

Well, at least I knew who the guy was from my dreams. I just didn't expect him to be a vampire. But that's why he was a mysterious. It makes sense to why Stefan Salvatore was staring at me. He probably thought I was a snack. But if that were true, he would have attacked me. It was then I realized something.

I gasp loudly as I stood up from my bed. He must have been the one who attacked Vicki Donavan. I knew then and there that I had to talk to Stefan at school when I got there. But first I need to call someone who needs to know what I discovered. He had suspected that there were vampires here in Mystic Falls but I didn't believe him when he told me. I should have listened to him! He never lied to me before so why would he now? I quickly pick up my phone but before I could even press call on his number, I hear Lizzie's voice.

"Rowen, breakfast is ready!"

 _'_ _Dammit!'_ I curse to myself in my head. Out loud, I call back to Lizzie, "Alright! I'll be down in a minute!"

Lizzie didn't say anything else so I knew she had heard me. I brush down invisible lint from my embroidered lace mini-dress with a high neckline and a sweetheart bust. It was also short sleeved. My hair was straightened and fell to my shoulders and for shoes with the dress, I had black ballet shoes. As I head out of my room, I grab my jacket that I wore yesterday to school and go downstairs meeting up with Lizzie who was at the front door. She smiles when she sees him and her eyes sparkle as she took in what I was wearing.

"You look beautiful, Rowen," Lizzie tells me brightly. "I love your dress."

I blush and smile, "Thanks, Lizzie."

"Breakfast is in the kitchen on the counter," Lizzie tells me.

"Thanks." I go into the kitchen and see Max who was at the table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. We sit in silence as I eat my breakfast. Once I was done, I left the kitchen and follow Lizzie out the door to her car and she drove me to another boring day at school.

* * *

I quickly get out of Lizzie's car before she can say goodbye to me so I could find Stefan before history class started. I did find him, but before I could even go up to him, Bonnie came up to me.

"Hey Rowen," she greets me happily.

I sigh internally to myself as Stefan walks away from my vision before I look at Bonnie and smile at her.

"Hi, Bon," I tell her.

"Come on, let's get to class," Bonnie says to me with a smile.

I nod in agreement as she loops her arm around my mine and we walk together to class. By the time we got there everyone was already there in the room. Bonnie and I went to our separate seats as Mr. Tanner spoke up to start the lesson.

"Originally discovered nearly 5 centuries ago, the comet hasn't been over Mystic Falls in over 145 years. Now, the comet will be its brightest right after dusk during tomorrow's celebration."

As he lectured, I couldn't help but notice that Stefan and Elena were staring at each other every so often. It was quite annoying to watch. I wasn't paying attention much to what Mr. Tanner was saying; too busy wondering how I was going to talk to Stefan about what happened with his brother without people listening in. Stefan's gaze breaks away from Elena's for a moment to meet mine. I just stare back at him trying to figure him out, wondering what he was doing here in Mystic Falls. Mr. Tanner speaking in an annoyed voice breaks our staring contest.

"Are we bothering you, Mr. Salvatore? Ms. McLaughlin?"

"Nope," I say popping the 'p' as I break my gaze from Stefan. "You can get back to teaching now so we can get this class over with."

Mr. Tanner's eyes narrow at me but he does as I said oddly enough. Probably because he didn't want to be here anymore than we did… soon enough the bell rings and students quickly get out. Bonnie, however, comes up to me.

"Hey, I'm going to meet up with Caroline, do you want to come with?" she asks.

"I would, but I have to do something," I tell her honestly. "I'll just see you at that comet celebration."

"Alright." Bonnie nods, "I'll see you then."

I nod in agreement. I get up from my seat and we go out of the classroom together but Bonnie went in a different direction. I went down the hallway and don't stop until I see Elena and Stefan who were talking to each other. He hands her a book. I couldn't see the title of it though. I stood there patiently waiting for them to finish talking. When they finally stop talking, I go up to them.

"I need to talk to Stefan," I say immediately causing Elena to look over at me with confusion on her face.

"About?"

"Well…" I try to think of an excuse. Luckily for me, Stefan helps me out as if he knows what I need to talk to him about. I guess Damon had told him about what happened between us last night.

"We have to finish this science project," Stefan tells her.

"Oh," Elena says obviously not knowing what to say besides that. She looks at Stefan; "I guess I'll see you later." She sounds hopeful.

Stefan nods in agreement and Elena smiles.

"Thanks for the book," she says before she leaves, leaving Stefan and I alone.

"Okay, let's cut to the chase, I know that you're a vampire," I say bluntly once she completely leaves. I lift a hand when Stefan opens his mouth and he shuts it, letting me continue. "What are you doing here in Mystic Falls?

"Rowen." Stefan sighs as he looks in my eyes, "Let's talk about this after school with no one around. I'll tell you everything."

I didn't say anything. I just stare at him.

"Fine," I finally tell him. I cross my arms, "Where do you want to talk?"

"We can talk at the old Salvatore boarding house."

I nod in agreement, "Alright. I'll see you then." With that, I turn a heel and continue down the hallway feeling Stefan's gaze on mine.

* * *

 ** _Third person POV…_**

"They're keeping her overnight to make sure there's no infection, but she should be able to come home tomorrow," Matt says to Elena as they walk outside.

"That's good news," Elena tells him with a smile.

"Yeah," Matt agrees.

"Did you get in touch with your mom?" Elena asks.

Matt shakes his head, "Called and left a message. She's in Virginia Beach with her boyfriend, so we'll see how long it takes her to come rushing home."

"Vicki's lucky that she's okay."

Sitting at a table was Stefan Salvatore and he was listening in onto Matt and Elena's conversation.

"I know and now there's talk about missing campers."

Stefan looks instantly alert as those words left Matt's mouth and he continues to listen to their conversation.

"Did she say what kind of animal attacked her?"

"She said it was a vampire."

Elena laughs slightly amused, "What?"

"Yeah," Matt replies. "She wakes up last night and mutters vampire and then passes out."

"Okay that's weird."

"I think she was drunk," Matt says but he looks like he doesn't believe it when he says it. They stop walking and he notices Stefan sitting at a table and he says to Elena as he continues to look at Stefan, "So what's up with you and the new guy?"

Elena sighs, "Matt…" She looks down at her feet for a second before she looks back up at Matt with a sad look in her eyes, "The last thing I want to do is hurt you."

Matt doesn't say anything as Elena bits her bottom lip while she still looks at him with a sad look in her eyes.

"You know, I'm…I'm actually going to go back to the hospital," Matt finally says. "I want to be there when Vicki wakes up, get the real story about what happened."

"Okay," Elena tells Matt in an almost whisper.

Matt smiles sadly and he walks away, leaving his ex-girlfriend alone. Elena looks at Stefan but he wasn't there at the table anymore. She continues to stand there, just staring at where Stefan once was.

-0-

"As Jeremy's teacher, I'm concerned," Mr. Tanner says to Jenna Somers as he stands before her with a folder in his hand. "It's the third day of school and he's skipped six of his classes."

Jenna nods and leans forward in the desk she was sitting in. "Mr. Tanner," she starts off. "Are you aware that Jeremy and Elena's parents died?"

Mr. Tanner looks bored as he recounts what happened, "Four months ago, a great loss. Wickery Bridge if I remember correctly." Jenna nods and he changes the subject, "And you're related to the family how? The, uh…" He looks down at his folder on the page that he was one and looks back up at Jenna, "Mother's kid sister."

"Younger sister."

"Right."

"Six classes? Are you sure?" Jenna asks in disbelief. "I mean, that's kind of hard to do."

Mr. Tanner clears his throat and looks Jenna in the eye. "Not when you're on drugs," he says and Jenna looks surprised. "It's his attempt at coping, Mr. Summers. And the signs are there. He's moody, withdrawn, argumentative, and hung over. Are there any other relatives in the picture?"

"I'm sole guardian."

"Uh-huh. Could there be?"

Jenna looks applaud at what Mr. Tanner was implying. "What are you suggesting exactly?" she asks.

"It's an impossible job, isn't it, raising two teens?" Mr. Tanner says, not answering Jenna's question.

"It's been tough, but, no, it's not."

"Wrong answer," Mr. Tanner snaps as he slams the folder on the desktop causing Jenna to jump in surprise. "It is an extremely impossible job, and anything less and you're not doing it properly."

Jenna purses her lips as her eyes flash angrily. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Jenna stood from her seat and storms out of the classroom.

* * *

 ** _Flashback, North Caroline, 2 years ago, Rowen 's POV…_**

 _It had been two days since I got attacked by that man who Mr. Saltzman told me was a vampire. I knew he was telling me the truth. I have always been interested in the supernatural… it was like my thing- that mostly only my close friends know about. My parents don't because they would have thought me to be a total freak for being interested in something like that. I knew that I had to talk to Mr. Saltzman about what happened and how he knew about vampires. He didn't tell me much. He just told me that the man was a vampire but after that, he took me back home and that was the last time I saw him. I decided after school to go talk to him._

 _It was after school now and I enter Mr. Saltzman's classroom and found that he was at his desk, grading papers. At least it looked like that's what he was doing. I went to stand in front of Mr. Saltzman's desk. He didn't take notice to me until I clear my throat._

 _"Oh Rowen," Mr. Saltzman says to me awkwardly. "Can I help you with something?"_

 _I took a deep breath, "We need to talk…about what happened that night. How do you know about vampires?_

 _"My wife…" Mr. Saltzman starts off and I look at him surprised._

 _I didn't know he was married. I pay attention again when he speaks once more._

 _"She was very much interested in the supernatural. She told me about them." Mr. Saltzman laughs dryly, "Even though I didn't believe her at all."_

 _"When did you start believing her then?" I question Mr. Saltzman, interest gleaming in my eyes. He hesitates and I lean in with a pleading expression in my eyes, "Please…I won't tell anyone. I promise. And I always keep my promises." I move back from Mr. Saltzman and just stare at him until he says something._

 _Mr. Saltzman stares at me making me feel slightly uncomfortable but I don't let it show on my face. Finally he sighs and nods._

 _"Alright, but you can't tell anyone about what I'm going to tell you."_

 _"I told you, I won't. No one would believe me anyway even if I was to tell something but like I said, I promise I won't say anything…to anyone."_

 _With that, Mr. Saltzman starts telling me about what happened to his wife. By the time he finishes telling me, I look at Mr. Saltzman sadly. I felt bad for him. Must be awful to see your wife get killed by a vampire right before his eyes…_

 _"And ever since, I've been trying to find out where she is," Mr. Saltzman says. "And to find what vampire killed my wife."_

 _"So you hunt vampires now?"_

 _Mr. Saltzman nods and I didn't say anything as I take it everything he told me. As I take it in, an idea pops in my mind and I voice it out loud, excitement in my voice._

 _"Teach me," I say bluntly but still excited._

 _Mr. Saltzman looks startled, "What?"_

 _"I said I want you to teach me to be a vampire hunter."_

 _"Are you serious?" Mr. Saltzman looks amused and I raise a brow at him._

 _"What? Don't think I can do it?" I ask as I put my hands on my hips._

 _"Well…" Mr. Saltzman chuckles, "You did run away when the vampire was chasing you."_

 _"Hey, I was freaking out, you would be too if some creature that kills and drinks people blood starts chasing you," I protest. "I just need a good teacher. I saw what you did out there, you were amazing."_

 _"I don't know Rowen …" Mr. Saltzman says unsure._

 _"At least give me a chance," I plead. Mr. Saltzman didn't say anything and I sigh, "Alright…I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." I go over to the classroom door but before I could even leave, Mr. Saltzman speaks up._

 _"Wait!"_

 _I turn to him and wait for him to continue. I didn't have to wait that long for that to happen._

 _"Alright, I'll teach you."_

 _"Really?" I squeak._

 _Mr. Saltzman chuckles and nods, "Yeah really…is this weekend good for you?"_

 _I nod enthusiastically. "Yes," I say. My eyes sparkle happily, "Where do you want to meet up?"_

 _"My apartment. I'll give you the address." After Mr. Saltzman gives me his address, I smile at him brightly and gratefully._

 _"Thank you Mr. Saltzman," I tell him softly._

 _Mr. Saltzman smiles back, "Just call me Alaric."_

 _"Okay Alaric." And this was where a beautiful friendship began._

* * *

 ** _End Flashback, Present Day, Third person POV…_**

Matt walks into his sister's room and finds that Vicki wasn't in the bed. He looks around in confusion for a moment before he turns around only to jump when he finds Vicki right behind him.

"Whoa!" Matt says in surprise. But he stops when he sees this blank expression on his sister's face, "Vick." There was no response so he tries again, "Vicki, hey. Vick, it's Matt. Hey, what's wrong?" Matt touches her shoulders and she starts to freak out, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"No, no, no, no!" Vicki cries loudly as Matt took a hold of her and tried to calm her down as she moves frantically in his arms to get out of his firm grip.

Finally she tears out of his grip and screams again, "NO!"

"Nurse!" Matt cries loudly as he rushes out of the room to find the nurse.

In a blur, Stefan appears and pins Vicki to the bed causing her to freak out again. But quickly thinking, he looks in her eyes and his pupils dilate as Vicki's eyes turn dazed.

"It was an animal that attacked you," Stefan starts to compel Vicki. "It came out in the night and jumped you. You blacked out. It's all you remember."

"It's all I remember," Vicki repeats in a dazed voice.

"An animal attacked you. You blacked out. It's all you remember."

"It's all I remember."

In the hall of the hospital, Matt ran through the hall trying to find the nurse. He skids to a stop when he sees the nurse talking to someone.

"Nurse!" Matt exclaims, getting the nurse's attention. "I need help! It's my sister!"

The nurse nods quickly and ran down the hall right behind Matt to Vicki's room. As soon as they were in there, Matt's eyes widen at the sight of Vicki being back in the bed. The nurse glances at Matt confused.

"She seems fine," The nurse reassures Matt.

Still confused, Matt looks out of his sister's door and sees Stefan Salvatore going down the hall. Quickly he follows Stefan and when he enters the room where he saw Stefan disappear in, the new guy was nowhere to be found. Matt went over to a curtain and threw it open but no one was there. In a matter of seconds, he notices that the window was open so he went over there and peers outside and looks around but there was no one outside. Matt's eyes narrow outside for a few minutes. It must have been just his imagination. He shakes his head and heads out of the room to go back to Vicki's.

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

I head over to the front door to leave to go to the old Salvatore boarding house to talk to Stefan. Before I even open the door, I hear Max's voice.

"Hey, where are you going?"

I turn to face my brother and tell him, "Oh I'm going to the old Salvatore. I, uh, have a project I need to do for school with Stefan Salvatore."

Max raises an eyebrow at me but he nods believing my lie. "Alright, be home soon then," he tells me.

"I will," I say and I open the door but again before I could even go out, I was stopped by Max's voice. I roll my eyes internally to myself wondering what he wanted know. I turn back to him and hide the annoyance in my voice as I ask, "What?"

"I wanted to let you know that Mom and Dad called," Max tells me. "They wanted me to tell you to call them back sometime."

"Oh so now they care," I snap as I roll my eyes.

Max sighs, "Rowen …"

"What?" I asked, feeling snappy, but I continue with a sigh, "Look, I know what you're going to say: 'Rowen, they do care about you'. If they cared so much, they would have called me a long time ago… so just don't say anything."

Max sighs again, "Alright." He throws me keys which I easily catch, "Here, you can take my car. Just be careful with it."

"I will." With that, I left the house and go over to Max's car, which is right outside. I get in the driver's seat of the car, start it up, and I drive in the direction of the boarding house.

-0-

I look up in amazement as I look up at the boarding house. It was huge! I couldn't help but wonder how many rooms were in this house. I guess a lot considering how big the boarding house was. I let out a sigh as I lift a hand and I knock on the door a couple times before my arm fell to my side and I wait until someone answers the door. I didn't have to wait long. Stefan opens the door and he stares at me as I stare right back.

"Well, are you gonna invite me in or what?" I ask sounding impatient and I was.

"Right, come on in," Stefan tells me as he moves to the side to let me in.

I step into the boarding house and I walk further into the house, looking around, taking in everything. I hear the boarding house door close as I continue to look around. Stefan clears his throat from beside me and I look at him.

"Follow me, we can talk in my room," he says. He didn't wait for me to answer as he starts to walk heading I guess to the stairs.

I quickly follow him staying close behind so I wouldn't get lost. Like I knew I would if I was in this big of a house by myself. I follow him up the stairs and to a door that I knew was his bedroom. Stefan opens the door of his bedroom for me and I walk inside. The room looks just as big as the house does and I couldn't help but wonder if all the rooms were this big.

"Alright," I start off as I turn to face Stefan with my arms crossed, "So what are you doing here in Mystic Falls?"

"Why don't you sit down?" Stefan offers as if to stall the conversation.

"No, I'm good standing," I tell him bluntly. "Look…" I look Stefan in the eye, "I'm not gonna stake you. You haven't done anything to hurt me unlike your older brother. You know, he really needs to control himself."

Stefan sighs as he rubs his temples, "I know…but that's Damon. He doesn't have any kind of control. That's why he has attacked all those people."

"So…he was the one who attacked Vicki?" I ask making sure and Stefan nods in reply. "So…if he's the one who drinks from human, what does that make you?"

"I only drink from animals."

"I guess that makes you a vegetarian, huh?" I tease. I couldn't help but grin at my 'Twilight' reference. I was just glad that the vampires that I knew didn't sparkle.

Stefan chuckles, "I guess you can call it that."

"Oh I think I will." I laugh but then I look serious again, "Now back to my question, what are you doing here in Mystic Falls?"

"I wanted to have a new start. My ex-girlfriend, Katherine, died in a fire…at the old church."

I tilt my head to the side, "How old are you exactly? I don't mean in human years, but vampire ones."

"145 years old. I was turned in 1864."

"What about Damon?" I ask.

"He got turned at the same time as I did. Katherine…" Stefan sighs pausing for a moment before continuing, "Damon and I were both in love with her. He blames me for Katherine's death and ever since, Damon has been making my life miserable because of it."

"So that's why you said you didn't have any brothers to talk to?"

Stefan nods. I open my mouth to say more but stop at the look on Stefan's face.

"What is it?" I ask concern in my voice.

Stefan didn't answer as he rushed out of the room. I didn't waste any time in following him. I follow him into the living room and I see Elena and she was talking to Damon. I froze in my spot at the sight of Damon as he spoke up,

"Hello Stefan. Rowen."

"Elena," Stefan starts in a tight voice. "I didn't know you were coming over."

Elena looks embarrassed as Damon's gaze flickers to mine. I purse my lips as he smirks at me. I wasn't scared of him not by a long shot. Though, I didn't like Elena, I wouldn't want to see her get hurt because of Damon. He was a vampire and a vampire that didn't have any control over killing people. I glare at Damon as Elena speaks up.

"I know, I should have called, I just…"

"Oh don't be silly," Damon says breaking his gaze from mine to look at Elena with a smirk on his face. "You're welcome any time. Isn't she Stefan?" He looks at Stefan then who glares at him. Damon's smirk widens as he continues speaking looking back at Elena, "You know I should break out the family albums or some home movies. But… I have to warn you. He wasn't always such a looker."

I snort loudly, unladylike. "Well at least Stefan has a better attitude than you Damon," I retort.

She looks confused as Damon narrows his eyes at me. "Wait, you two met already?" she asks still looking confused.

"Yes, let's just say the meeting wasn't pleasant at all," I say with a smirk. "Was it Damon?" I wink at him and Damon's eyes narrow even more.

Stefan quickly cuts in before Damon can say anything to me, "Thank you for stopping by Elena. Nice to see you."

She flinches at the coldness in Stefan's voice. But I knew it wasn't because of the fact she was here, but because of Damon.

"Yeah, I should probably go," she says as if nothing happened. She looks at Damon and says politely, "It was nice to meet you, Damon."

Damon returns to smirking and I roll my eyes. Geez! He was annoying with all the smirking that he did. Did he do anything else besides smirk?

"Great meeting you, too, Elena," Damon says charmingly as he takes her hand and kisses the back of it.

I immediately glance at Stefan and saw how his eyes narrowed at Damon as he kissed Elena's hand. Damon let go of Elena's hand and he glances at me again and I pretend not to notice. Elena looks back at Stefan.

"Stefan," she says, but he's too busy staring at Damon with an intense look. "Stefan?"

Still Stefan didn't say anything and Elena looks upset. She turns a heel and walks away. I quickly follow her but Damon grabs onto my arm. Stefan takes a step forward to do something but a hard look from me stops him.

"Where are you going, Princess?" He tightens his grip on my arm, but not so much that it would hurt.

"Away from here," I spat out. "If you know what's good for you, stay away from Elena. I won't hesitant in staking you again."

"You think I'm afraid of you, Princess." Damon smirks, "I was caught off guard last night."

"Right… keep telling yourself that," I growl as I tear my arm from his grip. "I'll talk to you later Stefan," I say to him before I stomp, out of the house.

I manage to catch up with Elena who just got into her car. Her car window was down.

"Elena," I greet as I stop next to the driver's seat. I look at her concerned as she looks at me, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replies with a forced smile. I gave her a look of disbelief but she ignores it as she changes the subject, "Hey would you like to come over to my house?"

I look surprise at the invite, "Why?"

"I got this sense that you don't like me that much," Elena says softly.

I didn't correct her because I was true. When I don't say anything Elena continues speaking,

"I thought that maybe we could start over. So what do you say? Do you want to come over?" Elena looks hopeful.

I decide after thinking about it that I should give her another chance. And if I wanted to protect her from getting hurt by Damon or Stefan (I doubt that she would get hurt by Stefan but you never know with vampires), it would be better that we were friends instead of enemies.

"Yeah," I finally say with a smile. "I would love to."

Elena beams at me, "Great. You can follow me over to my house."

"Alright." I go over to Max's car, get in it, and I follow Elena out of the driveway of the boarding house.

* * *

 ** _Third person POV…_**

"Wow, those girls sure are spunky! - especially Buffy: The Vampire Slayer," Damon says to Stefan with a smirk once the girls had left. Stefan glares at his older brother even more when he heard Damon call Rowen, 'Buffy: The Vampire Slayer'. Damon spoke, his smirk still on his face, "You on the other hand looked pooped. Did you over exert yourself again today? Let me guess…hospital."

Stefan stares at him some more before saying in a sort of tired tone, "Someone had to clean up your mess."

"Were you successful? Did the power of persuasion work?" he asks rhetorically. "Remember, if you don't feed properly, none of those tricks work right?"

Stefan ignores his brother as he changes the subject, "How long was Elena here?"

Damon's smirk widens at the question and says still smirking, "Were you worried Stefan? Scared we may be doomed to repeat the past? Isn't that why you play your little game, 'I'm a high school human'?"

"I'm not playing any games."

"Of course you are," Damon says offhandedly. "We both know the closest you'll ever get to humanity is when you rip it open and feed on it."

Stefan's eyes narrow at his brother, "What kind of game are you playing, Damon?"

Damon smirks, steps closer to Stefan, and whispers in Stefan's ears in a mysterious tone, "Guess you'll just have to wait and see, won't you?" He moves back and smirks once more before he leaves the boarding house leaving Stefan standing there, looking after them.

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV..._**

It was now nighttime and I was still at Elena's house. I spent the rest of the day with her and oddly enough, I liked her a lot better than I did when I met her for the first time. Elena was actually pretty nice…not that she wasn't before but I saw it more now. Probably had to do with the fact that I wasn't pissed off at the fact that I was here in Mystic Falls. Elena and I stood by the dining room table with Jenna. Elena had just finished telling Jenna about Stefan and the issues he had. I kept quiet throughout that conversation, just listening in while eating my chili three way, which is absolutely delicious thanks to Jenna who made it for me.

"So apparently, he's on the rebound and has raging family issues," Elena says to her aunt with a sigh as I continue eating.

"Well at least it's an ex-girlfriend, wait till you date a guy with mommy issues or cheating issues, or amphetamine issues," Jenna jokes.

At the sound of the door opening, I look up from my food as Jeremy Gilberts enters the house. My nose wrinkles as the familiar smell of pot went up my nose. I hate the smell of pot…though I did it from time to time but that was in my emo stage. I didn't do it anymore even though my parents would think otherwise. It wasn't much longer until Jenna notices that Jeremy had entered the house.

"Jeremy?" Jenna calls to Jer to get his attention but Jeremy continues to walk towards the stairs. She storms over as she yells, "Jeremy, where were you?!" She manages to get over to him before he fully made his way up the stairs.

Jeremy stops in his tracks, turns to Jenna, and slurs out, "More stoner stories? Look, Jenna, I get it, you were cool. And so that's…that's cool."

"Oh, no, no, no!" Jenna screeches as she throws an apple at Jeremy's back when he starts up the stairs again.

"Ow! Why? Why…why did you do that?" Jeremy slurs out again and I roll my eyes as Elena watches in concern.

"Listen up," Jenna says in a stern voice. "Quit ditching class or you're grounded- no discussion."

Jeremy chuckles, clearly amused, and not taking her seriously, "Parental authority, I like it. Sleep tight." He walks the rest of the way up the stairs with Jenna staring after him with a glare on her pretty face.

"I should go," I suddenly say to Elena. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Alright," Elena agrees with an apologetic smile. "See you." She gives me a short hug and I get up from my seat at the dining room table.

When I walk pass Jenna, she looks at me.

"I'm sorry that you had to see that," Jenna says looking embarrassed. "He's not usually like that."

"It's fine Jenna," I reassure her. "This is just phase, it'll pass."

"How do you know?" Jenna asks.

"I was the same way a couple years back and I got over it, just be there for him when he needs you," I reply. I hope she follows my advice. My parents weren't there for at all when I needed them and it made me hate them. I didn't want that to happen to Jenna…or Jeremy for that matter.

Jenna nods and smiles at me gratefully, "Thank you Rowen. Tell Max and Lizzie that I said hi."

I tell her okay and I leave the Gilbert house. I left my car over at my house since Max's house wasn't that far from Elena's. Once I get there, I go inside and head up the stairs to go to sleep.

-0-

The comet party was now going on. I had spent most of my time with Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena. But I was now outside, walking. It was now getting kind of boring at the party. I sigh as I blew out the candle that I had in my hands. I look up then and see Matt stopping, meeting up with Stefan. I went closer to them until I could hear their conversation.

"Have you've seen my sister?" Matt asks Stefan.

"No, sorry."

"I can't find her. She's missing."

"I'll keep an eye out her." Stefan starts to leave but Matt stops him.

"Hey, I saw you at the hospital yesterday."

My eyebrow rise up in confusion, but then I remember that he was probably at the hospital to make Vicki forget about his brother attacking her.

"Did you?" Stefan says and I pay attention again.

"What were you doing there?"

"Visiting."

"Visiting?" From the sound of Matt's voice, he didn't believe Stefan for even a second but he changes the subject and he sounds serious, "You know, Elena and I, we've known each other for a long time. We might not be together right now, but I look out for her. And I'll always look out for her." Matt leaves then and I go up to Stefan only to see a look of concentration on his face as if he was listening in on something.

"Stefan, what's going on?" I ask concerned as I touch his shoulder, which causes him to jump.

"It's nothing," he reassures me. "Just stay here."

"But—"I didn't have time to protest because he leaves, walking in a quick pace.

As if I was going to stay here… My grip tightens on my bag and I start running in the direction that he went in. Thankfully I was wearing jeans so I was able to run fast. I catch up to him but he doesn't seem to notice me. He was looking upward and I look up to see what he was staring at. There up on the roof was Vicki and Damon. It looked like he was going to push her off of the edge. I open my mouth to call to Stefan but in a blur he's gone and I had a feeling he was now up on the roof. Quickly I go to these small stairs that led up to the roof where Stefan, Damon, and Vicki are, I climb up, making it just in time to hear Damon say in a patronizing tone that causes me to roll my eyes,

"Not bad. Have you been eating bunnies?"

"Let her go." Stefan demanded.

So I wouldn't be noticed, I hid behind something and without thinking about it; I pull a stake from my bag gripping it protectively. I had to try and keep myself still so I wouldn't reveal myself, but found it hard to do so with what happened next. Damon tries to push Vicki off the edge causing her to scream. I hold back my gasp not wanting to be seen just yet.

"No, no, no!" she shrieked.

"Ugh! Relax." Then in a singsong voice Damon called, "You can come out now Rowen."

Damn! I thought to myself. Then, I grumble to myself, "Stupid vampires and their stupid hearing." I get out of my hiding spot and make myself known to Stefan who looks at me in disbelief.

"What are you doing here Rowen? I told you to stay there," Stefan says to me in frustration as Vicki sobs at his feet.

I smirk, "I couldn't let you have all the fun now could I?" I twirl the stake in my hand and I held back an even bigger smirk when he flinches slightly at the sight of it. But I couldn't help myself; I smirk largely at him as I say in a baby voice, "Aw is the big bad vampire scared of a little stake?"

Damon takes a menacing step towards me, but I stay rooted to the spot with a bored look on my face, not scared at all. But that didn't stop Stefan from going to stand in front of me protectively. This makes him stop and he snickers to himself as he says,

"It's so like you to protect a wannabe vampire hunter."

"Hey!" I cry defensively as I glare at him. "This wannabe vampire hunter kicked your ass!"

Damon opens his mouth to say something back to me but Vicki's cry of, "What's happening?" interrupted him before he could. He smirks as he looks at Stefan.

"I don't need her to be dead, but…you might." Before Stefan and I could even say anything, he turns back to Vicki and leans forward looking at her, "What attacked you last night?"

She looks up at him with tears running down her face. She sniffs and rubs her eyes as she says tiredly,

"I don't know... an animal...?"

Damon leans towards her even more, "Are you sure about that? Think. Think about it. Think really hard. What attacked you?"

It was then I realize what he was doing.

"Don't listen to him Vicki!" I exclaim as I bend down to her level, getting her to look at me. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's an insane person!"

She looks back and forth between Damon and me as we glare at each other, not knowing what to think.

"What attacked you?!" Damon exclaims at her, ignoring me completely.

I went to stop her- to get her to stop listening to him again- but it was too late as she had realized what really attacked her.

"Vampire!" she gasps out in fright.

"Who did this to you?"

"You did!" she screams at the top of her lungs.

"Wrong!"

"Don't," Stefan pleads to him, but he ignored him.

"It was Stefan," Damon tells her, who immediately looks at Stefan. His eyes are wide in disbelief at what his brother is doing. I was in disbelief too. Geez, Damon must really hate Stefan to make Vicki believe that it was him who attacked her.

"Don't." he tries again to get Damon to stop what he was doing but of course again, he doesn't listen.

"Come here," Damon says to her as he took a step closer.

Having a feeling what he was about to do, I charge towards him, stake at the ready. Funnily enough, this caught Damon off guard so he didn't have any time to move before I stabbed him in the stomach. He let out a gasp of pain as he fell to the floor with the stake still in his stomach. Vicki was still sobbing. Since he wasn't able to move, I go over to Vicki and pick her up in my arms with her still sobbing. I then went over to Stefan and hand him the sobbing girl.

"Take her back to Matt, I'll deal with him," I say as I nod towards Damon who was now on his back groaning.

Stefan opens his mouth to protest but the hard look on my face stops his protesting and he nods reluctantly in agreement. Once he was gone, I turn back to Damon.

"I told you- I wouldn't hesitant to stake you again," I say in a smug voice.

"Just take it out," Damon growls out.

I pretend to think about it. "I don't think so," I snap at him with narrowed eyes. "Why should I?"

"Because if you don't there will be serious hell to pay," Damon growls again.

"Well maybe if you say please… then maybe I might change my mind about taking the stake out," I tell him as I cross my arms over my chest.

Damon rolls his eyes as they flash angrily at me. "Fine," he spat out. " _Please_ take the stake out."

"Well since you asked so nicely," I say with a bright smile on my face as I went over to Damon.

Once I was over to him, I grab the stake in a firm grip and I pull it out quickly causing Damon to cry out in pain.

"There you go, happy now?" I ask him with a smirk on my face.

Damon just glares at me as he gets to his feet. The next thing he did, I expected, but I was still caught off guard when he pinned me down to the ground with his entire body weight on mine. His face- as well as his lips were close to mine. If I was to lean forward even a fraction of an inch, we would be touching. That's how close his face was.

"You know I can kill you with one snap of the neck," he growls in my face with a threatening tone in his voice.

"Then do it," I challenge him. "I dare you to do it."

He stares at me intently and I stare right back at him. I didn't miss the way he glances down at my lips then back in my eyes. He then smirks at me.

"I have a better idea Buffy," he says with the smirk still on his face.

I open my mouth to snap at him for calling me by that nickname, but before I could even say anything, his lips were on mine. I try to push him off of me, but this only made him deepen the kiss. He uses his tongue to make my lips part so he could slip it in my mouth. I press my lips together to try to stop him from doing so. Unfortunately, this doesn't work and his tongue made his way into my mouth and found my tongue.

Once his tongue tangles around mine, that's when I give up on trying getting the kiss to stop and I allow myself to relax and let him have his way with me. Though my head was telling me to stop this, push Damon away, and stake him through the heart, my body was telling me to keep the kiss going and make it more passionate. Because of the passion in the kiss, I listen to my body instead of my head. I lift my hands up to bury them into Damon's hair as he presses his lips harder again mine. Our tongue start a battle of dominance and my hands move out of Damon's hair and up the back of his shirt, feeling the muscles in his back underneath my fingers. My heart pounds against my chest as the passion in this kiss grew even more.

The dreams I've had of Damon went exactly like this…given it got more graphic as the dream went on. Suddenly he pulls his lips away from mine and I growl at him in protest. His beautiful lips turn into another smirk as he moves his head back to bury his face in my neck pressing kisses there. I move my head to give him more room. I moan as he starts to suck gently on my neck. This was so wrong…but why did it feel so fucking right? It was only when his hands crawl down my back and he grabs my ass that I finally snap out of it. I shove him off of me and stand to my feet, glaring at him. He just smirks at me and he stood up himself.

"Aw come on babe, we were just getting started," he teases as he steps close to me.

But I shove him away before he gets close to me. I glare at him heatedly.

"Don't take another step towards me," I snap angrily as I point a shaky finger at him. "And if you so much as tell anyone about this kiss then I'll kill you in your sleep and won't have a second thought about it."

With that, I storm away, grabbing my bag and the stake, leaving Damon standing there with a smirk on his face.

-0-

When I enter Max's house, I slam the door as hard as I can and I mutter angrily under my breath as I stomped over to the stairs. I was about to go up them but I was stopped by the sound of Lizzie's voice.

"Ro, you okay?" she asks concerned.

I turn towards her and force a smile, "Yeah…I'm fine Lizzie. Just tired." To show that I was telling the truth, I yawn loudly.

"Oh," Lizzie says quietly. "I hope you had a good time at the comet party."

"I did," I reassure her with a smile. "I'll see you in the morning."

Lizzie nods and I finally make my way up the stairs and to my room. Once I got dressed in my pajamas (a pair of short shorts and a white tank top), I settle myself in my bed and look outside. My eyes narrow when I saw the black crow at my window. It titled its head to the side and I copied the bird. What was this crow doing here?

After staring at it for a couple minutes I look away, got under the covers, and rest my head on the pillow closing my eyes. Eventually, I fall into a deep sleep and even though I try hard not to dream about Damon Salvatore and the kiss that we shared, I did just that.

* * *

 **TBC...**

 **In...**

 **Fright Night Bites...**

 **Review? ;)**

 **Though it seems like Damon's the endgame, he's not. It just seems that way now, but like I said, she's going to have multiple love interests. Anyway, tell me what you thought in a review! Until next time on SMH!**


	3. Friday Night Bites

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Vampire Diaries and never will because if I did, the show would have ended after season three. But I do own Rowen Matthews and any other characters that I make up.

 **A/N:** Thanks for the reviews! Here's the Friday Night Bites episode! Enjoy!

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

I let out a sigh as I took the towel out of my hair, letting my now wet hair to fall to my shoulders. I had gotten up early to get ready for school, which consisted of taking a shower before going to my room to get dressed. It wasn't too, too early. It was around seven o' clock so I had about an hour and thirty minutes until school. Lizzie and Max were already awake and downstairs. I could hear their voices in the kitchen. Their voices carried. They could be loud when they wanted to be- especially Lizzie. I wasn't sure what they were talking about, but it had something to do with who was going to wake up Desire. I made sure the towel was wrapped around me tightly as I leave the bathroom. Before I could even head towards my room, I hear Lizzie calling my name.

"Rowen! Are you done with your shower?!"

"Yeah Lizzie!" I call back. "Why?"

"Because a friend of yours is here! He's up in your room!"

My eyebrows furrow in confusion. Stefan was here? That's weird… I wonder why he's here.

"Uh okay!" I call back to her.

There was silence, so I knew that she had heard me. With that, I head over to my room and once there, I open the door and am shocked at who I find lying on my bed with his arms behind his head and a smirk on his face. It was Damon Salvatore. As I slam the door shut behind me, I ignore the lustful look in his eyes as he looked me up and down, taking in everything. I knew that I should give a damn about him seeing me only in a towel, but I couldn't bring myself to. All I could think about was how in the hell did he get in my house?

"Get out," I tell him through gritted teeth. "You can't be here."

"Aw! And here I thought you missed me, Buffy." Damon's smirk widens when I glare at him heatedly at the nickname.

"I didn't," I spat out as my grip on my towel tightened. "How the hell did you get invited in?"

Damon didn't say anything as he slowly got off of my bed. Before I could even blink, he had me pinned against the closed door, his entire body presses against mine in a way that makes me tingle all over. I manage to hold back the small moan that was begging to escape at the feeling.

It was then he presses his lips against mine and I didn't miss the way they molded perfectly against mine. Like the kiss we shared on the roof at the comet party, he runs his tongue against my bottom lip, begging for entrance into my mouth. I don't give it to him because I wasn't going to let the same thing happen twice, me giving into his perfect kisses.

His kisses made me feel things that I hadn't felt in a long time and that scared me. After a while of trying to get his tongue into my mouth, Damon gives up. That was something I didn't expect- but the next thing he does makes that go away quickly… He buries his face into my neck and presses soft kisses there. Every so often, he would nip at my skin causing me to moan out loud. But then his face is gone from my neck and he is kissing me again.

Because of me moaning, he was easily able to slip his tongue into my mouth. I try to use my tongue to push his out of my mouth but this doesn't work and his tongue curls around mine and he starts the battle of dominance. I didn't give much of a fight. I was trying to not make this go far…but I finally give up and press my lips hard against Damon's and I fight back against his tongue. I feel him smirk against my lips as his arms wrap around my waist and he presses my body hard against his.

I could feel his growling erection and I couldn't help but moan as he presses it into my core causing me to grow even wet than I already was. I start to move my core against his erection to find release. His arms move from my waist and I felt his hands go all the way to the bottom of my towel. He hiked up the towel to my waist and using one of his hands, he slips two fingers into me and I gasp because of how quickly he did this. I feel his fingers moving in and out of me and I try not to scream.

Thankfully he covers my mouth with his lips when I finally let out the scream, which got muffled because of his lips on mine. I moan as I start to move my hips against his hand as he continues to push his fingers in and out. I bury my hands in his hair and tug hard on it, this time causing him to moan against my mouth and me to smirk. Just as I was about to cum against his hand, he breaks the kiss and his face changes before my eyes. Before I could even scream, he threw his head back and bites into my neck…

Screaming, I awoke from my dream panting and I could feel that the pit of my stomach and my thighs were all tight and bothered. My chest moves up and down with every pant I take. What the hell?

I ran my hands through my sweaty hair, which feels disgusting against my fingers. But I don't pay attention to do it because all I could think about was that dream… Why the hell did I have that dream? Someone must be messing with my head. My head snaps to my window. It was still dark outside but I could make out the form of a crow and my eyes narrow at it. It seems to smirk at me and I realize what had happened. Damon Salvatore had made that dream happen…

 _'Damn him!'_ I scream in my head.

I blink once and the crow is gone. My jaw clenches together tightly as my eyes flash with anger. I want to scream at the top of my lungs. Who did he think he was…messing with my dreams like that? I was gonna have to have a talk with Stefan about his damn brother… But I quickly get rid of that thought. I didn't want him to know about it because then he would worry. Though I haven't known him for long, I know that he would worry about it if I told him about the dream and the kiss we shared up on the roof when he saved Vicki from Damon.

My thoughts are broken by the sound of my bedroom opening. I look up to see that it was Lizzie. She looked tired. It was obvious from the way she looked and the way she was rubbing her eyes as she looked at me worriedly.

"Are you alright? I heard you screaming," Lizzie tells me as she stops rubbing her eyes.

I force a smile, "Yeah…I'm fine Liz. I just had a bad dream."

"Oh … do you want to talk about it?" she asks and I shake my head.

"No, but thanks for asking, just go back to sleep," I tell her softly.

She nods and she tells me goodnight before she leaves my room, closing the door behind her. I let out a sigh as I sink back under my covers and rest my head on my pillow. I close my eyes and I slowly fall back to sleep. Thankfully without any dreams about Damon Salvatore…

It was in the morning now and I was in the bathroom, getting ready. I already had my clothes on which consisted of a spring street top in burnt orange and it had a simple belt around the waist, blue skinny jeans that fit me really well, and black Stuart Weitzman trooper flat boots with a buckle on the upper part of the boot and the shaft of it. I was also going to wear a black tall biker jacket because it was going to be somewhat cold outside today, but it was downstairs in the closet near the front door. The bag that I was going to have was in my room.

It was a black leather-look stud tassel across the body bag. It went perfectly with the outfit I was wearing. Right now, I was putting on my make-up. I usually didn't wear much of it, but it was enough to make me look decent. After I put on my make-up, I head back to my room to get my purse. I quickly grab my purse as soon as I go inside my bedroom since it was on the dresser that was nearby my bedroom door. I make sure that all my stuff is in the bag. After that, I leave my room and head downstairs.

"I'll see you after school!" I call to Lizzie and Max as I pass the kitchen to the front door.

She leaves the kitchen and meets me over at the closet- where I was now putting on my jacket.

"Are you going to that football game tonight?" she asks me.

I look surprised. I didn't know there was going to be one. I shrug.

"I don't know," I say. "I might. I'll tell you if I will."

She smiles and nods before she heads back over to the kitchen. Once my jacket was on, I put my bag across my upper body like it was made to do but before I could leave, I hear my name being called. This time it was Max instead of Lizzie. He threw me some keys that I caught easily. I look down at it confused. This wasn't Max or Lizzie's car… But I quickly realize what it was and I look up at him, beaming.

"You got me a car!" I exclaim unable to hide my excitement.

He nods and grins at me, "Yeah. I thought that you could use your own instead of using mine or Lizzie's all the time." Then he looks at me seriously, "But be careful. It's expensive."

I nod enthusiastically. "Thank you!" I tell me him and I go over to him and hug him tightly. As I hug him, I whisper in his ear, "Thank you."

I pull back from the hug and beam at him again. I quickly leave the house to check out my new car.

-0-

As soon as I parked my new car (which was bright red mustang), I got out of the car and I see Elena and Bonnie heading over to the school. Quickly, I close the door and I manage to catch up to them.

"Hey guys," I tell them brightly and they smile at me as I fall into step with them. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Bonnie thinks I shouldn't be dating Stefan," Elena tells me as she gives Bonnie a look.

"Hey, I'm not saying don't date the guy," she protests. "I'm just saying to take it slow."

This statement makes me wonder if Bonnie knows about Stefan being a vampire… I shook my head immediately because there was just no way. I was pretty sure I was the only one who knew about Stefan's big secret.

"Bonnie has a point Elena," I tell the brunette causing her to look at me as we continue to walk towards the school. "I mean, what else do you know about him besides what he's told us?" She doesn't say anything and so I add, "But that's the point of dating someone. Getting to know them."

She nods at what I said, agreeing with me. She looks over at Bonnie and says,

"Besides Bonnie…you were the one who told me to go for it."

"Now I'm saying take it slow," Bonnie continues to press.

Elena looks slightly hurt and Bonnie winces at the sight of it.

"Why the about-face?" she asks.

Before she could say anything, I interrupt. "I'll see you guys in class," I tell my friends, not wanting to be a part of this agreement between the two of them. I didn't do teen drama…

Bonnie nods and smiles at me, but it looks forced. "Yeah, okay," she says.

I give them a hug before I continue to head the way to the school. I was almost there, but I saw Stefan heading my way. No doubt he was heading over to Elena and Bonnie.

"Hi Rowen," Stefan greets me with a smile.

"Are you going to see Elena?" I ask him. When he nods, I ask, "Does Bonnie know about you being…" I glance around to see if there was anyone around and I look back at him and whisper, "A vampire."

Stefan looks confused so that answered my question, "Uh no, why do you ask?"

"Well apparently, Bonnie told Elena to go for it with you but now she's saying to take it slow, so I assumed that she knew about the whole vampire thing," I answer with a shrug. "I mean why else would she tell Elena to take it slow if she didn't know something."

"You didn't tell her, did you?" Though the question wasn't in an accusing tone, it sure felt that way…

In response I snap out, "No! Of course not! I told you that I promised I wouldn't tell anyone about it and I didn't."

Stefan winces. "Sorry Rowen," he apologizes. "I didn't mean anything about it."

"I know, I'm sorry," I tell him softly.

We stare at each other for a moment before we burst out laughing for some strange reason.

"Come on," I manage to say through the laughs as I loop my arm through one of Stefan's. "Let's go see that girlfriend of yours."

He laughs again and nods as we head in the direction that they were in. It wasn't that much longer until we met up with them. Elena looks surprised to see me.

"I thought you were going to class," she says to me.

"I was, but then I met up with Stefan," I explain as I nod in his direction.

Elena smiles at him a little bit shyly I might add. He smiles back.

"Good morning Elena," he tells her. Then he looks at Bonnie and tells her the same thing.

"Hey," Bonnie greets back awkwardly. "Um, I got to go find Caroline. She's not answering her phone. So I'll talk to you guys later." She quickly leaves ignoring Elena when she told her to wait.

I look after her, concerned and confused. If Bonnie didn't know about Stefan, why was she acting that way? Talk about weird… The sound of Stefan's voice breaks my thoughts.

"She doesn't like me very much," he says to Elena.

"Really, what gave you that idea?" I couldn't help but say sarcastically.

He rolls his eyes at me but he looks amused at my sarcastic statement.

"She just doesn't know you," Elena reassures him. "She's my best friend. She's just looking out for me. But when she does get to know you, she will love you."

"Just as much as I do," I say.

Though she didn't say this, I know she was thinking it. And Elena blushes at my statement causing me to smirk. I look over at Stefan and saw he was trying to hold in his laughter. He obviously saw the blush on his girlfriend's face too. But as quick as the blush came it went and Elena changes the subject, her eyes were sparkling as if she had come up with an idea.

"Here's what were gonna do, are you free tonight?" Elena asks Stefan.

"Yes."

Elena grins, "Perfect. Dinner. My house. 8 o'clock. You, me, and Bonnie." She looks at me, "You can come too if you want. Maybe if Bonnie sees someone else who likes Stefan, it might make her like him easier."

"Yeah that sounds good to me," I tell her and Elena grins at me.

-0-

I tap my fingers on the desk with a bored expression on my face as Mr. Tanner talked and talked and talked. I never knew how boring history could be until I got Mr. Tanner as a teacher. How could anyone be in this class and not get bored. I could hear a side conversation going on between Stefan and Elena, about how he should be on the football team. As we walked to class, Tyler Lockwood (who was nothing short of a jerk) threw the football at Stefan and Elena despite the fact Matt tried to get him to stop before he could do that. But that failed…

Luckily though with Stefan's vampire speed (though no one knew it), he managed to catch the football before it hit them. It was pretty funny to say the least. Elena and I couldn't help but laugh loudly at the shocked looks on Matt and Tyler's faces. But this caused Elena to suggest that Stefan join the football team. Something that Stefan wasn't budging on. As I continue to tap on my desk, I look over at Bonnie who was I sitting by and saw that she was writing something down.

"What are you writing?" I whisper to her.

Bonnie looks up at me startled and she covers the notebook. "Oh…it's…nothing," she tells me pausing at each word so I knew that it was defiantly not nothing.

But I didn't push her to tell me. I nod and go back to pretending to pay attention of class while still tapping on my desk.

"Stop tapping your desk Miss McLaughlin," Tanner snaps at me with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Sorry," I mutter to myself as I discretely roll my eyes but I'm sure he saw it if the scowl was any hint. But so I wouldn't get in trouble, I stop tapping my desk as Tanner spoke again.

"World War 2 ended in…Anyone got anything? Miss Juan?"

The girl he was talking about pretended not to hear him and Tanner held back a sigh.

"1945," Tanner says.

I jump slightly at the sound of Elena's voice as she whispers to Stefan,

"FYI our team sucks, they could use you."

"Can't," Stefan replies in a whisper too as he smirks slightly, sort of looking like Damon but it was more of an amusing smirk.

"Pearl Harbor?" I hear Tanner say as he looks at Elena, clearly wanting her to reply to this.

"I'm a loner," Stefan says with the amused smirk still on his face.

"Miss Gilbert!" Tanner says loudly getting Elena's attention.

"Hmm?" Elena looks confused.

"Pearl Harbor?"

Elena now looks nervous, "Um…"

"December 7, 1941," Stefan answers for Elena who instantly gives him a grateful look.

"Thank you Miss Gilbert," Tanner says sarcastically.

Stefan didn't catch the sarcasm as he thanks Tanner somewhat cheekily…at least I thought he didn't. I could be wrong.

Tanner chuckles but it's not amused. "Very well," he says. "The fall of the Berlin Wall?"

Stefan instantly replies, "1986."

Tanner looks surprised and I hold back a laugh. Because it's really hard to make Tanner surprised…at least that's the impression I got from him.

"I'm good with dates, sir," Stefan explains with a light shrug of his shoulders.

"Are you? How good? Keep it up to the year. Civil rights act?"

"1963."

"Martin Luther King?"

"'68"

"Lincoln?"

"1865."

"Roe vs. Wade?"

"1973."

"Brown vs. Board?"

This kept on going. It was funny to see them going back and forth like this… It was finally the last question. I surprised myself by actually listening.

"Korean War?"

"1950 to 1953."

"Ha!" Tanner shouts with a grin. "It ended in '52."

Stefan shook his head, "Actually, sir, it was '53."

Immediately Tanner demands someone to look it up. It was guy and he tells Tanner,

"It was…" He pauses as he searches the answer on his phone. When he found it, he looks up at Tanner and says, "1952."

Tanner looks dumfounded and I finally let out the laugh that I had been holding in.

"Go Stefan!" I cry ecstatically as I lift a hand in Stefan's direction for a high five.

Stefan chuckles amused as he slaps my hand. Tanner scowls just as the bell rang. Students instantly left the classroom. Stefan, Elena, and I were the last three out.

"How did you know all of that stuff?" Elena asks amazed.

"Years and years of crosswords puzzles," Stefan replies simply.

Stefan and I share a secret grin which was unnoticed by Elena.

-0-

Bonnie had cheerleading practice after school and I met up with her outside to just watch the practice because she asked if I wanted to come and I told her yes. As we walked to the practice with Bonnie already dressed in her cheerleading practice outfit, I decide to warn Bonnie about the plan Elena had to get her to like Stefan.

"I wanted to tell you that Elena's planning on asking you to eat dinner with her," I say giving her a look, thinking she would get what I was saying.

"What's that look…?" Bonnie, at first, says confused but then she realizes what my look was for and groans, "Don't tell me. Stefan's going to be there too?

I nod, "Yeah he is." Bonnie looks stressed and I pat her on the shoulder as I say, "Don't worry. I'm going to be there too. So when Elena tells you about it, just go along with it and at least try to be excited. Elena really wants you to like Stefan. He's a great guy…just give him a chance."

"Fine," Bonnie gives in with a sigh. She looks over at me and shakes her head with a smile on her face, "Have you've always been able to convince people to do something so easily?"

"Nah, not all the time…mostly just friends," I tell her, laughing lightly. "My parents are stubborn. I usually can't convince them of anything…not that they even give a shit about what I do."

Bonnie looks sympathetic, "You don't have a good relationship with your parents?"

I shake my head, "No. Not really. They act like they care but I know that they don't…the people who really do care is Max and Lizzie."

"I'm sorry, that must be tough," Bonnie says.

I nod but don't say anything else. A while later, Bonnie was sitting on the ground stretching her arms and legs with all the other cheerleaders around her. I stood close to her so I wouldn't get in the way of the other cheerleaders. I notice instantly that there was no Caroline in sight. Wasn't she the head cheerleader?

"Where's Caroline?" I ask Bonnie.

"I don't know," Bonnie replies worry in her voice as she glances at me while still stretching. "I've tried to call her but she's not picking up."

I frown. I hope that she was okay... I look up and grin at the sight of Elena heading our way.

"Elena!" I say brightly causing Bonnie to finally notice the brunette.

"Oh my god, you're here!" Bonnie exclaims with a grin of her own as she got to her feet and hugged her friend tightly for a moment before breaking away from the hug with the grin still on her face.

"Yep, I can't be sad girl forever," Elena says as she starts to stretch with Bonnie. "The only way to get things back to the way they were is to do things that were. Oh and your coming to dinner tonight."

"Okay," Bonnie tells her with a nod. "Is Stefan gonna be there too?"

Elena looks surprised. But the surprised look disappears from her face as she looks over at me.

"You told her, didn't you?"

"Yeah," I reply. My friend gave me a look and I instantly protest, "Hey, at least she's agreeing to come. If I hadn't told her and convinced her to come, she wouldn't be coming. I told her to give Stefan a chance."

"I'm not upset, Ro," Elena reassures me with a laugh. She gives Bonnie a thankful, "Thank you Bonnie…for giving Stefan a chance. You'll be glad that you did."

"I doubt it," Bonnie mutters under her breath so quietly that Elena didn't hear her. Clearly she says to Elena, "Have you've seen Caroline? I've called her but she's not picking up."

Elena looks concerned when she hears this, "Really? That's not like her to be late?"

"I'm gonna try her again," Bonnie says to herself as she goes to get her phone out.

Suddenly, I hear the sound of a car and I look up. Instantly I freeze up at the sight of Damon in a blue car with Caroline in the passenger seat… I purse my lips together. This isn't good at all…

"Uh…" I hear Elena say. She had obviously noticed Care with Damon too.

Bonnie must have took notice too because she exclaims in a slightly loud voice, "Oh my god. That must be the mystery guy from the Grill."

"That's not a mystery guy, that's Damon Salvatore," Elena says as she stood up with Bonnie.

"Salvatore as in Stefan?!" Bonnie looks shocked and surprised.

Damon's blue car stops right where we were and Care got out of the car, closing the door behind. I watch as Damon's eyes follow Care as she goes over to us and says to Elena in a cheeky voice,

"I got the other brother."

I miss Care talk to the other cheerleaders as Damon looks at me with a smirk on his face. I scowl at him for a moment before I look over at Elena and Bonnie.

"I've got to go, I'll see you guys later at Elena's," I tell them.

Elena and Bonnie nod. With that I leave to go to the by car. Before I could even get far enough, Damon drives in front of me blocking my path.

"Move out of the way Salvatore," I spat out as I glare at Damon.

Damon just smirks at me. I let out an exasperated sigh as I continue to glare at Damon. Shaking my head, I go around Damon's car and start to head in the direction of my car. But then I stop in my place when Damon says,

"You know, you're mom was so nice to invite me in your house."

I turn to face him quickly. "What are you talking about?" I demand.

Damon's smirk deepens as he replies, "Well I saw that your mom was bringing in groceries and being the great guy that I am, I helped her bring them in."

"You stay away from Lizzie and my brother," I growl at him as my hands clench into fists at my side. "They're not involved in _any_ of this." I didn't give him a chance to reply as I face forward and stomp the rest of the way to my car ignoring the fact that Damon was staring after me.

Once I was over to my car, I reach to open the front door of my car but I jump when Damon appears in front of me, still with that damn smirk on his face. I try to twist his arm to get him out of my way but him being the vampire and apparently knowing what I was about to do, he quickly turns me around so that I'm pressed against the car and he grabs my arms and move them above my head with his body pressed against mine.

Again I try to get him off of me by trying to hit him in the place where the sun don't shine but again he stops me from doing so by grabbing my leg and hooking it around his waist.

"Get the fuck off of me!" I growl loudly, struggling to get out of his grip but this didn't work. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs to get someone's attention but there was no one around the parking lot.

"You know Rowen …" Damon leans forward to purr this in my ear while his grip on my leg tightens causing me to wince slightly but I still had a glare on my face, "I love tough girls and you defiantly fit the bill." He moves his face away from me but not before he nips on my neck causing me to gasp lightly.

Damon finally lets go of me and heads in the direction of his car. I lean against my car as I watch Damon drive away.

Damn that Damon Salvatore… I shook my head and get into my car.

* * *

 ** _Third person POV…_**

It was after the football tryouts and he was back at the boarding house when Stefan walks into his bedroom as he slips on a shirt. But he suddenly stops in his place at the sight of Damon. His older brother was sitting on a chair with his legs propped up on a table in front of him. He was reading from something. He didn't look as he speaks up,

"How were tryouts? Did you make the team?" Damon glances at his brother from the corner of his eyes as he smirks slightly, "Very Emerson of you, the way you reveal your soul with so many…"

Stefan zooms to Damon and rips the diary out of Damon's hands. This causes Damon's smirk to deepen as he says,

"Adjectives."

Stefan's eyes narrow at Damon as his grip tightens on his journal, "What are you doing here?"

"I've come to apologize," Damon replies, not bothering to get up from his seat but he did stop propping his feet on the table.

His brother looks serious so Stefan couldn't tell if he was telling the truth.

Damon continues speaking, "I've been doing some soul searching, and…I want us to stop all over. We need to put the past behind us. You're my little brothers." He gets out of the chair and goes to stand in front of Stefan, still with the serious look on his face, "And if you want to live a normal human life, then I want that for you. Maybe I can do it too. That I can learn to be a non-living living person. Maybe there's hope for the both of us."

Damon manages to keep his face serious, as if he was being serious about what he was saying, but this doesn't last, He breaks into laughter causing Stefan's eyes to narrow even further. Damon pats Stefan hard on the shoulder and starts to leave but stops and turns around when Stefan says,

"You know, it doesn't have to be this way, Damon."

Damon smirks. "Of course it doesn't," he agrees. He changes the subject instantly, "I saw Elena, BTW. That means "by the way"." He adds as if Stefan didn't know this, "She was at cheerleading practice. She looked so perky in her little shorts, shorts."

Stefan lets out a low growl at that and Damon holds his hands up in surrender.

"Simmer down, I didn't go near her," he tells Stefan. He smirks then, "Rowen, on the other hand…"

Stefan's face hardens at the mention of his new friend. Though she knew about vampires and could handle herself as she was a vampire hunter, he still felt very protective. Especially since Damon seemed to have taken an interest in her…

"You have seen the dream I gave her when she was sleeping this morning, how she moaned my name when I fucked her…"

Stefan growls loudly as he starts to charge at Damon but his brother was too quick for him and was gone before he could do anything. Stefan's hands curls into fists as he glares at the place where Damon once was.

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

"I'm leaving!" I tell Lizzie and Max as I enter the living room where they were watching TV at.

Lizzie looks up at me from her spot on the couch with a confused look on her face, "Where are you going?"

"To Elena's house," I reply. "Remember, she invited me to eat dinner with her, Bonnie, and Stefan."

Lizzie nods when she remembers me telling her this when I got home from school. "Alright," she says. She smiles at me, "Have fun Rowen. Tell Stefan, Elena, and Bonnie I said hi."

I smile back. "I will," I tell her. I look at both of them then, "I'll back later."

Lizzie and Max nod. I smile at them one last time before I head over to the front door. Before leaving, I open the closet next to the front door to get my jacket. I slip on the jacket - it was the one I wore today at school - once I get it and I open the front door only to look surprised when I saw Stefan standing there with his hand poised to knock.

"Stefan, what are you doing here?" I ask confused.

"I thought we could walk over to Elena's together," Stefan answers.

But he had a serious look on his face and I frown, "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong." The look on his face begs to differ but I decide not to say anything.

"Alright if you say so," I say slowly as I walk past him and Stefan closes the door behind us.

We head in the direction of Elena's house, not say anything.

"Did it really happen?" Stefan suddenly asks.

I look over at him confused but he wasn't looking at me. "Um…did what happen?" I question.

"Did Damon give you a dream this morning?"

I try not to blush as I remember what happened in the dream. "Yes," I finally say in a quiet voice. "But whatever Damon told you? It didn't happen." I quickly tell Stefan when I see the dark look on his face. I pause for a moment before I ask tentatively, "What did he tell you about the dream?"

"That he gave you a dream of him and you having sex with each other," Stefan answers.

"That's what he told you," I say, a disgusted look on face. "I can defiantly say that didn't happen. He probably only said that to get on your nerves. Even though I haven't known him for that long, I know he enjoys doing that."

Stefan stops walking suddenly which caused me to stop walking too. I watch as he pulls something from his pocket and he holds it out towards me. It was a beautiful heart shaped locket necklace with a sparkling center.

"What's this for?" I ask as I took the necklace.

"This has vervain in it," Stefan replies. "As you know, vervain keeps vampires from compelling you. And I thought that you could use it. I don't want Damon to compel you to do what he wants so just keep it on you at all times." His eyes look into mine pleading.

I give a small nod and I put the necklace around my neck, clasping it together with some difficulty. I move the necklace around so that the locket was resting on my chest.

"Thank you," Stefan tells me softly.

"You're welcome."

We walk the rest of the way to Elena's house. Once there, Stefan rings the doorbell and after a couple minutes, Elena opens the door with a surprised look on her face. Her eyes glance down and I follow her gaze to mine and Stefan's connected hands which somehow got connected on the rest of the way to Elena's house. I knew it was just a friendly gesture from both our sides but Elena didn't know this. So I wasn't surprised when I saw her eyes flash with jealousy. But it came as quickly as it went. Elena smiles brightly, mostly towards Stefan though.

"Come on in guys," she says.

Stefan and I walk inside and Elena closes the door behind us. A while later, we were sitting at the dinner table eating dinner…in awkward silence. Like none of us knew how to start a conversation. It was mostly awkward because of the fact that Bonnie didn't like Stefan. I decide to break the silence.

"So Stefan, how did the tryouts go?" I ask.

"Yeah," Elena says looking relived that someone started a conversation. "Did Tanner give you a hard time?"

"Well he left me on the team, so I must have done something right," Stefan answers with a light laugh.

Elena giggles as I tell Stefan with a smile on my face,

"That's great Stef."

Stefan nods in agreement as he smiles back at me.

"Bonnie, you should have seen Stefan today," Elena says, looking over at Bonnie. "Tyler threw a ball right at him, and…"

"Yeah, I heard," Bonnie cut in quickly.

And another awkward silence followed… I would have said something but I didn't know what to say. Luckily I didn't have to as Elena was the one who broke the silence this time.

"Why don't you tell Stefan about your family?" she says.

"Um divorced, no mom, live with my dad," Bonnie answers while picking at her food.

"No, about the witches," Elena says. Bonnie starts to protest but Elena's voice drowns her protest out as she looks over at Stefan, "Bonnie's family has a lineage of witches. It's really cool."

"Cool isn't the word I would use," Bonnie says dryly.

"Well it's certainly interesting," Stefan tells her. "I'm not too versed, but I do know that there's a history of Celtic druids that migrated here in the 1800s."

"My family came from Salem."

Wow… Salem witches. I didn't know much about Salem witches. Just about the Salem witch trials and how back then when people suspected someone to be a witch, they would put them to death. Which was something I thought was cruel. No one should be killed over something that makes you special.

"Really? Salem witches?" Stefan says surprised.

Bonnie nods, "Yeah."

"I would say that's really cool."

It was Bonnie's turn to be surprised, "Really? Why?"

"Salem witches are heroic examples of individualism and non-conformity," Stefan explains with a smile.

Bonnie smiles back, "Yeah, they are."

Elena shares a look with me. I stifled a laugh. Looks like Elena's plan was working so far… Suddenly I hear the doorbell ring. A confused look appears on Elena's face.

"Are you expecting someone else?" I ask Elena confused.

Elena shook her head, "No… I wonder who it could be." She gets up from her seat and heads in the direction of the front door.

Having a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, I give Stefan a look. He seems to get what I was trying to say because he stands up and goes in the same direction Elena went with me close behind.

"What are you doing here?" Stefan and I demand at the same time when we get to the front door only to see Caroline inside the house and Damon was standing outside.

Damon smirks, "Waiting for Elena to invite me in."

"Oh, yeah, you can…"

"No, he can't," I interject as I glare at Damon. "I don't know what you're planning, but get the hell out of here."

Damon looks amused and I growl under my breath.

"What Rowen is trying to say, he can't stay," Stefan says. He gives his brother a look, "Can you, Damon?"

"Get in here," Care demands.

"We were just finishing up," Stefan tries again.

Elena gave Stefan a 'what the hell are you doing?' look as she says to Damon, "Its fine. Come on in."

Damon gives me and Stefan a smug look as he enters the house. But I just glare at him in response. But he just gave me a wink, not at all looking bothered by my glare. After he walks further in, Damon looks at Elena.

"You have a beautiful home, Elena," he tells her with a charming smile.

"Thank you."

Damon's eyes flashes to mine and he smirks at me before he went in the direction of the living room where Caroline went. Elena followed Damon too leaving me and Stefan standing there. We share a look and I sigh as we walk towards the living room.

-0-

"I can't believe that Mr. Tanner let you on the team," Caroline gushes to Stefan from her spot next to Damon on the large chair that was close to the couch where me, Stefan, and Elena were sitting at. "Tyler must be seething. But good for you. Go for it."

"That's what I always tell him," Damon says agreeing with Caroline but I knew he didn't mean it. "You have to engage. You can't just sit there and wait for life to come to you. You have to go get it."

"Yeah, Elena was so lucky today," Caroline says in a sort of bitchy tone. "It's only because you missed summer camp. God, I don't know how you're ever going to learn the routines."

I give Caroline a disbelieving look. Geez what the hell is her problem?

"I'll work with her," Bonnie quickly says but something in her tone of voice tells me that she was used to this. "She'll get it."

"I guess we can put her in the back," Caroline says to herself.

"You know, you don't seem like the cheerleader type, Elena," Damon speaks up.

Elena smiles to herself as she drinks her coffee.

"Oh, it's just cause her parents died," Caroline says to Damon. "Yeah, I mean, she's just totally going through a blah phase. She used to be way more fun." She laughs but she stops short at the look on Elena's face and she went on to say, "And I say that with compete sensitivity."

I snort quietly to myself. If you did, then you would have said that in a _sensitive_ voice.

"I'm sorry Elena," Damon says in a soft voice, but I knew it was fake. He just wanted to get on Elena's 'good side', "I know what's it's like to lose both of your parents. In fact, Stefan and I have watched almost every single person we've ever cared about die."

"We don't have to get into that now," Stefan says in a hard tone.

"Oh you know what, you're right Stefan. I'm sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was bring _her_ up."

I knew that Damon was talking about Katherine. Seeing the look on Stefan's face, I couldn't help but grab his hand and squeeze it in a friendly, comforting tone while leaning into his side. I miss Damon's narrowed eyes.

-0-

"Matt tries, but he's just having a hard time," Caroline was saying to me and Stefan. Bonnie had gone into the kitchen to help Damon and Elena who were in there. "You have to understand that they were each other's first. You know, like, from the sandbox." She smiles and takes a sip of her drink.

"That's a really nice scarf," Stefan says, looking at the scarf around Caroline's neck.

I just took notice to it once Stefan said something. I give him a confused look wondering where he was going with this.

"Mm, thank you, it's new," Caroline accepts his compliment with a smile as she plays the end of the scarf.

"Can I see it? I mean, would you mind taking it off?" Stefan questions her with a serious look on his face.

I was still confused. Why would Stefan want to see the scarf?

"Oh I can't."

"Why not?"

Caroline looks nervous and it made me very concerned. Stefan must have felt the same way because he says to her in a concerned voice,

"You okay?"

"Um…All I know is that I can't take it off," Caroline replies, still looking nervous.

I open my mouth to say something but Damon coming into the room made me close my mouth.

"What are you three kids talking about?" he asks as he went over to sit on the arm of the chair that Caroline was sitting on.

"I was just commenting on her scarf," Stefan answers Damon's question with a hard look in his eyes.

"Mmm." Damon hums as he glances over at me for just a second before he looks at Caroline. "Hey, you know, um, Elena and Bonnie are finishing up with the dishes. Why don't you see if you can help?"

Caroline laughs as if Damon was joking, "Does it look like I do dishes?" she gave Stefan and I an amused look.

"For me?"

Caroline looks back at Damon and shakes her head, "I don't think so."

I watch as Damon's eyes dilate while looking into Caroline's eyes. I knew he was compelling her. It was then I realize why Stefan wanted to see that scarf. Damon was using Caroline as a blood bank. My hands curl into fists as I glare at Damon who wasn't paying attention as he says to Caroline still looking into her eyes,

"Go see if Elena needs help in the kitchen."

"You know what," Caroline starts off when Damon's gaze breaks away from hers. "I'm gonna go see if Elena needs help in the kitchen."

"Great," Damon says with a smirk as Caroline got up from her seat and left the living room. As soon as she was gone, Damon looks over at me, "You should go too; I need to talk to my brother alone."

"Oh I don't think so," I snap out. "Whatever you have to say to Stefan, you can say to me. Because that's my friend in there that you're using as your own blood bank so I'm sorry that I want to be here when you talk to your brother." Though I was snapping this out, it was quiet so that Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline couldn't hear.

Damon just smirks at me and I instantly want to smack it off of his face.

"Rowen, just go," Stefan says causing me to look at him.

His eyes were pleading. Though I wanted to stay in here and hear what Damon had to say, I decide to just go. But I was going to hide so I could listen to their conversation.

"Fine," I grumble to the two brothers. I get up, give one last glare to Damon, and leave the living room. But I quickly hide behind the wall near the living room so I could hear everything.

"They are people Damon, she's not a puppet," Stefan says to Damon in a hard voice. "She doesn't exist for your amusement, for you to feed on whenever you want to."

You tell him Stefan! I cheer in my mind, internally punching a fist in the air. But I knew that this wouldn't mean anything to Damon. And I turn out to be right when I hear Damon give a light laugh.

"Sure she does, they all do," he says.

I peer out into the living room so I could look at them too. Thankfully they don't take notice to me.

"Alright you had your fun," Stefan snaps. "You used Caroline; you got meet Elena, good for you. Now it's time for you to go."

"That's not a problem." Damon smirks when he says this, "Because…I've been invited in and in case you didn't know, Rowen's mom invited me in too."

Stefan's face darkens at that and I wince at the sight of it. Great, Damon just had to tell him that didn't he? I roll my eyes.

"So I'll come over to Rowen and Elena's houses tomorrow night and the following night and I'll do with your little cheerleader and your friend whatever I want to do it." Damon continues to smirk at Stefan as he leans towards him saying, "Because that it what is normal to me."

-0-

I turn to Stefan once we were both at my front door.

"I'll see you tomorrow Stefan," I tell him. I go to open the door when I felt Stefan grasp my shoulder. I look at him just as he speaks up,

"Lock the door and the windows just in case Damon decides to come visit you, okay?" Stefan looks right into my eyes to show me that he was serious.

I nod, "I will." That's what I was planning on doing anyway…

I give him one last smile before I go inside my house, closing the door behind me.

-0-

I found myself walking in a cemetery. It was dark and spooky. Normally I wouldn't be scared of the dark but there was something about this night that was oddly unsettling but I didn't know what it was and I found myself wanting to get out of this place as soon as possible before something bad happened.

The air seemed to get colder and colder as I walk deeper into the cemetery and I didn't have a coat on because for some reason I was in my pajamas and since I didn't have a coat, my body kept on shivering and I wished that I had a coat. Suddenly I hear the sound of a crow cawing in the distance. This makes me start running as fast as I can in the opposite direction, hoping that this would be the way to get out of the cemetery.

But I only ran for a couple minutes because I trip over my feet and this instantly reminds me of when Mr. Saltzman saved me before I knew about vampires. As soon I get back to my feet, I look up and there in front of me was Damon Salvatore and his face was in vampire mode. I couldn't help but gasp and my first instinct is to run but then I remember that I was a vampire hunter and could easily take him on.

With that thought in mind, I start to fight Damon. He put up a really good fight like I expected but I end up winning. But before I could even start to run again, I feel someone grab my leg and pull me to the ground and then a body being pressed against mine. I knew it was Damon and I try to fight him off before he could even think about kissing me. Of course this doesn't work and Damon slams his lips onto mine in a bruising kiss.

For some reason I instantly return his kiss and press my lips harder against his. Damon growls against my lips in response as he runs his tongue across my bottom before he takes my bottom lip in between his teeth and tugs on it hard. I moan letting him slip his tongue into my mouth and I move my tongue to find his.

It doesn't take long to find it and we start a battle for dominance. His hands run down my side and because of the thin tank top that I had on, I could feel his warm hands against my skin and I moan against Damon's lips again at the feeling as I let my legs wrap around his waist. Suddenly his hands are gone from my sides causing me to groan in disappointment but this doesn't last long as one of his hands made his way up my stomach to my breast and he squeezes hard making me moan and buck against his growling erection which I felt against my thigh.

Damon moans and squeezes my breast even harder and I gasp loudly because of this. Heat polled between my legs and my legs tighten around Damon's waist and I continue to rub against him wanting to release the pressure I was feeling. My hands went down to the buckle of his pants and I expertly unhook the belt and throw it off to the side. His hand disappears from my breast and I felt him to the same thing to me that I did to him. Except he unbuttons my pants and I stop moving against his erection while Damon lifts his body off of mine so he could slip my pants. As soon as my pants were gone, the cold air hit my hot skin and I shiver.

But nothing happens because I found myself waking up, all wet and bothered. My chest was going up and down. It was only just a dream. I sigh as I sit up in my bed, running a hand through my hair.

"That dream was good wasn't it, Buffy."

The hand in my head freezes at the sound of the cocky voice and I quickly turn my head to the side. And sure enough there was Damon Salvatore staring at me with a smirk. I screamed and quickly grabbed the comforters to cover myself.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" I scream at him.

"Well, I wanted to come over to see you and those cute pjs."

"Shut up Damon and get out of here!"

"Did you like the dream? Shame you woke up too soon. We almost had sex," he says with a smirk on his face.

My eyes grew bigger when I heard what he had said. "Excuse me, there is no way in HELL I will have sex with you."

"Really, because in the dream you were begging me to take you... I mean, you did allow me to take your pants off."

Holding back a loud scream, I quickly grab the stake that was by my bed side but I end up not using it because his pupils dilated and a dazed look appears on my face. I totally forgot that my vervain necklace was on my bedside table.

"Go back to sleep and when you wake up again, you won't remember this moment or the dream I gave you," Damon says as he looks straight into my eyes.

My eyes slid closed and I fell back against the bed, falling back to sleep, missing Damon who sneaks out of my room through the window.

-0-

It was in the morning and I found myself stumbling my way into my bathroom once I wake up from my sleep to go take a shower before the football game today. I ended up deciding to go to this thing because I had nothing else to do today and I didn't really want to stay home all day and do nothing. Once I was done with my shower and got out, I grab a nearby towel and wrap it around my wet form before grabbing another one to wrap my hair with it. I hear a knock on the bathroom door so I call out,

"Who is it?"

"It's Lizzie. Elena Gilbert's on the phone."

I move quickly over to the bathroom door and open it up, revealing Lizzie as she holds the home phone out towards me.

"Thanks Lizzie," I tell her quickly before closing the door. I move the towel away from one of my ears so I could put the phone to my ear.

"Hey Lena," I say brightly but there was some tiredness to my voice. "What's up?"

"I was just wondering if you're going to do the football game," Elena replies.

I nod even though she can't see it, "Yeah I'm going. I'm actually done with my shower."

"That's great," Elena says and I can hear the smile as she says this. "I could pick you up and we can go together."

"Sounds good to me," I tell her. "Just give me an hour."

"Alright. See you then. Bye Rowen."

"Yeah, bye Lena."

I hung up the phone and sat it down on the sink. I exit the bathroom to finish getting ready in my bedroom. I was finished with getting dressed, drying my hair, and putting on a little bit of makeup in thirty five minutes. Surprisingly I was excited to be going to a foot game but I know it was because at my old school I didn't have any friends so I didn't really go to the school functions but now being here in Mystic Falls, I actually had friends that I could go with to these sort of things. I was wearing a good outfit to wear to a football game which was a white tank top with a pullover fleece hoodie to go over the tank top and a pair of dark wash vintage skinny jeans and for shoes I was wearing simple white sneakers. I glance at the clock and see that it was almost an hour since Elena had called so I knew she was going to be coming soon.

Leaving my bedroom, I go downstairs and once I get down stairs, the doorbell rings. A smile came on my face immediately.

"I got it guys!" I call to Lizzie and Max wherever they are and go over to the front door and I open it up and sure enough there was Elena but she wasn't in her cheerleading outfit.

"Hey Rowen." Elena grins at me as she gives me a tight hug and she pulls back seconds later and she sees my frown, "What…what's wrong?"

"Why aren't you wearing your cheerleading outfit? Are you on the team?" I question her.

"I quit," Elena answers instantly with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Oh okay. Why?"

"It's not me anymore. That part of my life is done." Elena looks sad by this fact but she shakes out of it and smiles at me, "Come on, and let's go before we're late."

I nod and call to Lizzie and Max one last time, "I'm leaving for the game guys! I'll see you later!"

"Have fun Rowen!" Lizzie calls back seconds later.

"I will!" Sharing an excited grin with Elena, I loop my arm around Elena's and we head over to her car to go to the game.

-0-

Before I knew it, it was mid-day and I found myself talking happily to Elena at the football game (it hadn't started yet, it was sort of like a pregame party), having a really great time. But our talk is interrupted by the sound of a familiar voice.

"Hey guys."

Elena and I both look up and see Stefan heading his way over to us, dressed in his football jersey.

"Oooh, look at you, you look hot in your jersey," Elena says flirtingly as Stefan stops in front of us.

"Eh, I've seen better," I say nonchalantly but I wink at him to show I was joking.

"Haha you're hilarious Rowen," Stefan tells me sarcastically but he grins at me and I grin back while Elena shakes her head. He looks at Elena and finally notices she's not in her cheerleading outfit, "What happened? No more cheer leading?"

"I quit, I'm a quitter," Elena says simply.

"No, hey—"Stefan takes her hands in his and looks into her eyes, "You suffered a great loss. You're not the same person. You should be looking ahead. You should be starting over, okay?"

"He's right Elena," I say and Elena looks over at me then Stefan and nods.

Stefan continues speaking, still looking in her eyes, "I hope you don't think this is too soon or too weird, but… I, uh, I wanted you to have this." He pulls out a box and opens it revealing a beautiful necklace.

And from the secret look Stefan gave me, I figure out that this necklace had vervain in it just in case Damon compels her. I was just glad I had my necklace too so that it wouldn't happen to me either. I decide to leave.

"I think this is my cue to leave," I say with a grin and a wink before I leave the lovebirds alone.

 _Nighttime…_

I made my way through the screaming crowd as Mr. Tanner made his football speech introducing Stefan. I had stood with Elena for a while during it but got bored so I decided to go off and find something to do. Once I was through the crowd, I took notices to Jeremy Gilbert who was drinking with who -I guess - were his friends. I wasn't really sure. They could have been just acquaintances. As if he felt I was watching him, Jeremy looks up and meets my eye but looks away seconds later, taking a swing of his beer. I head over there and ignore the cat calls of the boys around Jeremy once I get there.

"Can I sit?" I ask, gesturing to the seat next to him.

Jeremy just shrugs at me which I took as a yes so I sit down next to him. As soon as I sit down, he holds a beer bottle towards me to polite I guess. I normally didn't drink – well I did – but not as much as I used to. I take the bottle and I easily open it up and took a swing of it before I wipe my mouth with the back of my head.

"Did Elena send you over here to check on me?" Jeremy asks, annoyance in his voice, as he looks over at me.

I just stare at him for a moment then shake my head, "No, she didn't Jeremy. I just came over here because I was bored. That's it."

"Whatever," he mutters.

I didn't like his tone. "Look," I say sharply. "Your sister and aunt may take this kind of a crap but dude, I'm not going to."

Jeremy looks at me with a glare and opens his mouth to retort at me but was interrupted by the sound of Vicki Donavan's voice,

"Wait, no!"

I look up and so does Jeremy only to see that Tyler was heading our way with an angry look on his face but Vicki was trying to stop him by standing in front of him and trying to push him back by the chest.

"Tyler, no!" she yells at him loudly.

But Tyler pushes her out of the way. "Oh, what do you care?" he snaps at her and Vicki stops trying to stop him.

He starts walking again towards Jeremy – who goes to stand – but I try to stop him by grabbing his arm. Because of me being a vampire hunter, I always seem to know when a fight was about to take a place and there was defiantly going to be one. But before I could even grab his arm, Jeremy stands up and walks towards Tyler who stops in front of him while the boys who were with Jeremy stood up too. There must have been a glum look on Jeremy's face when he looks over at Vicki because Tyler smirks and says in a patronizing voice,

"Don't look so down. You can have her when I'm done."

Jeremy throws the first punch, hitting Tyler right in the face. Tyler didn't waste any time on hitting him back. Vicki was screaming at them to stop as a crowd forms while I try to jump in the middle at stop the fight but on accident, Jeremy shoves me to the ground and he flips Tyler on his back but Tyler does the same thing and starts punching Jer. It was only a matter of time until Stefan and Elena were over here.

And just like I thought, they appear and Stefan pulls Tyler off of Jeremy.

"Hey, he's down! Enough!" Stefan exclaims at Tyler.

Tyler was about to punch Stefan but although I knew it wouldn't have any effect, it didn't stop me from quickly getting in the middle and I caught his fist with my hand. His eyes widen at my quick reflex.

"Stop it!" I snarl at him, shoving him as hard as I could.

It was then that I felt myself being shoved out of the way and my eyes widen as a broken beer bottle had cut Stefan's hand.

"Jeremy, no!" Elena shouts as she rushes over to her brother while Matt told Tyler well yelled at him,

"Tyler, knock it off!" I guess he had started to go after Jer again and Matt had to stop him.

I get off of the ground and go to Stefan whose hand was bleeding.

"You idiot, what the hell were you thinking pushing me out of the way like that?" I snarl quietly but the worry was in my voice. "Elena saw you get cut and when the cut is gone, she's going to be asking questions and I know for a fact that you don't want her to know about your secret right now…"

"Hey, your safety is important too," Stefan snaps at me. "Not just Elena. If I didn't push you out of the way you would have gotten cut."

I just sigh in response and open my mouth to say something but Elena rushing over to Stefan interrupts me.

"Oh my god, your hand!" she cries hysterically as she tries to see the cut but Stefan quickly hides it behind his back.

"No, no, no, it's fine," he says trying to get her attention away from his hand.

But it didn't work.

"Is it deep? How bad is it?" Elena questions as she manages to get Stefan's hand out from behind back but he still kept it closed. "Come on!"

She gets Stefan's hand open and her eyes widens obviously seeing that the scar was gone.

"But…I saw it, it was…" Elena sputters as she tries to figure out what happened.

"It must have been your imagination, his hand is fine," I tell Elena quickly.

"But I saw it happened, his hand was bleeding!"

"I'm fine Elena, see," Stefan says as he shows her his hand. "I'm fine."

But she didn't give up what she saw…which wasn't surprising at all.

"No, no, no I … saw it. The glass cut your hand. It was…"

"It's okay," Stefan tells her hurriedly. "I'm okay." He changes the subject, "It's almost kick off time, alright? So, um, I'll see you after the game." He looks at me for a moment before he quickly leaves leaving me with Elena.

"I gotta talk to Bonnie," Elena mutters to me.

Before I could say anything, she leaves hurriedly and I sigh. Well this could have gone better…

-0-

Elena had ended up not locking her car so I was able to get inside of it. I went over here to get a water bottle. It was in the back of the car where I was at right now. Once I got my water, I turn around and I groan inside my head at the sight of Damon Salvatore who was looking at me with a smirk.

"What are you doing here?" I ask in a snappy voice as I cross my arms over my chest. "I didn't really peg you to be the kind of guy to go to high school events."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Rowen," Damon says mysteriously while doing this weird eye thing. "And besides Caroline invited me to come since you know we are basically dating."

"Yeah if you call 'dating' using her a blood bag then yeah, you're defiantly dating," I say sarcastically as I roll my eyes. "If you dating her then, shouldn't you be with her instead of bothering me?"

"Because I'm hiding from her," Damon says this in a whisper as if it's some big secret he's sharing with me.

"And why is that exactly?" I ask pretending to be interested when I'm really not.

"I needed a break. She talks more than I can listen."

"Then break up with her if she bothers you so much," I tell him as if it's the most obvious answer in the world and it was.

"Well that would be the easiest choice, wouldn't it?" Damon muses with a fake thoughtful look on his face. It disappears seconds later and he now has a wicked smirk on his face, "But then I wouldn't have my personal blood bag."

"You're disgusting," I spat at him.

He just smirks at me. "You didn't think I was 'disgusting' last night," he teases.

"It was a dream, asshole, meaning it wasn't real," I point out. "If it happen in real life, I would be so disgusted by it."

"Right," Damon drawls out in a way that makes me want to smack him.

It was then a question popped in my head that I immediately blurt, "What is your intention with me?"

Damon doesn't answer my question. I guess it was because he didn't really know what it was.

But he did say something that made me scoff out loud,

"I may have intentions but so do you."

"Right," I drawl out the same way Damon did.

"You find yourself drawn to me," Damon continues as he looks into my eyes with a smirk on his face. I scoff again at this, "You think about me when you don't want to think about me. You even dream about me."

I would have pointed out that it was only because he made the dream happen but before I could, his pupils start to dilate. Just to mess with him, I put a fake dazed look on my face.

"And right now…you want to kiss me." Damon leans towards me and I lean in too but before his lips could touch mine, I quickly maneuver behind him and I bend his arm behind his back and I shove him against the car while still keeping his arm behind his back so my body had to press against his.

I look at his face and he looks astonished by the fact I didn't get compel and I smirk.

"And this is why you shouldn't try to compel a slayer," I tell him with the smirk still on my face. The smirk falls from my face and I had a hard look on my face and I spat at him, "Now you fucking stay away from me and don't you even think about getting near Elena. I will kill you if you go even a centimeter towards either of us."

I let him go and Damon falls to the ground and looks up at me, still astonished. I give him one last smirk before I turn a heel and walk away leaving him staring after me.

* * *

 ** _Third person POV…_**

It was later on after the big fight when Stefan was heading to his car to get something. But he stopped at the sound of Matt Donavan's voice.

"You gonna be able to play?" he says as he and Stefan fall in step with each other.

"Oh, yeah, I'm good," Stefan tells him.

Matt nods and says, "Uh, what you did back there…"

Stefan stops and looks at Matt who continues once he was looking at him.

"You had Jeremy's back."

"Ah, he's a messed up kid," Stefan tells Matt softly. "Somebody's gonna look out for him."

His team mate nods in agreement, "I know." He changes the subject and looks Stefan in the eye as he says, "This week at practice … I was a dick."

"Had your reasons."

"No excuse." Matt holds out his hand towards Stefan and he immediately shakes it. He lets go of Stefan's hand and smiles, "Good luck tonight. We're lucky to have you."

Stefan smiles back and Matt leaves. Once Matt was gone, he hears some clapping coming from a corner. He looks and it turns out to be Damon who was hiding in the shadows.

"Isn't that nice?" Damon says sarcastically as he continues to clap his hands. Stefan joins a team, makes a friend. It's all so, "rah, rah, go team, yeah!" He pumps his fists in the air as he pretends to cheer.

"Not tonight," Stefan says in a hard voice. "I'm _done_ with you." He turns to leave but finds Damon in front of him.

"Nice trick with Rowen tonight," Damon tells Stefan with a smirk while his brother just stares at him confused. "Let me guess…vervain in the necklace."

Stefan realizes then he's talking about the necklace that he gave Rowen. Damon must have seen Rowen and found out the hard way about. He almost smirks at Rowen must have done when Damon tried to compel her to do something.

"I must admit, I was a bit surprised," Damon says with a smirk. "It's been a while since anyone could resist my compulsion." He then adds, "Where'd you get it?"

"Does it matter?" Stefan moves past but stops when Damon says, the smirk clear in his voice,

"Guess I could seduce her the old fashioned way like I've been doing. Or I could just…eat her."

Stefan doesn't face Damon for a couple minutes thinking about Damon and Rowen. If it was someone else other than Rowen or Elena, Damon wouldn't have hesitated in killing that person but both girls were alive…and with Rowen being the one who had been around Damon more, he didn't once try to harm her other than the time when they first met. Stefan realizes then that Damon must _feel something_ for Rowen …he actually felt something for someone who wasn't Katherine… And another thing he realizes is that Damon wouldn't hurt Rowen. Stefan smiles slightly to himself. His brother did have humanity in him like Stefan always knew he did.

"No," Stefan finally says as he turns towards Damon who's looking at him expectantly. "You're not gonna hurt her, Damon."

"No?"

Stefan walks towards Damon with a serious look on his face as he says, "Because deep down inside, there is a part of you that feels for her." He stops in front of Damon, "I was worried that you had no humanity left inside of you that you may have actually become the monster you pretend to be."

"Who's pretending?"

"Tell kill me."

"Well, I'm…I'm tempted."

"No, you're not. You've had lifetimes to do it, and yet, here I am. I'm still alive. And there you are. You're still haunting me. After 145 years. Katherine is dead." Damon's eyes flash with hurt but he looks away from Stefan but his brother still continues, "And you hate me because you loved her, and you torture me because you still do. But this girl – Rowen – is making you feel _something_ after all these years and that my brother is your humanity."

"Salvatore! What the hell?!"

Stefan turns to see Tanner heading his way with his arms spread out and an angry look on his face.

"We got a game to play!" Tanner yells.

"If that's my humanity…"

Stefan looks back at Damon and his brother continues,

"Then what's this?"

Before Stefan could do anything, Damon zooms over to Tanner and bites his neck causing the teacher to scream.

"No!" Stefan exclaims with wide eyes but it's too late.

Damon drops Tanner onto the floor. It was obvious the teacher was dead and Damon looks back at Stefan – whose eyes were still wide – with his face still changed and blood all over his mouth. He smirks at his younger brother.

"Anyone, anytime, anyplace." And that's the last thing Damon said before disappearing leaving Stefan there for a couple minutes before disappearing himself still shocked about what happened.

It wasn't that much longer until someone – Matt – found Mr. Tanner and the police and the ambulance came. While the ambulance takes Mr. Tanner away, Bonnie Bennett stands there watching the scene take place. And she takes notice to the numbers that she had been seeing in her head over again. The number 8 was on a licenses plate of a car, the number 14 was on the immatricualtion's car, and the number 22 was on the ground. This causes Bonnie's eyes to widen and a scared look crosses her face.

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

When I heard about Mr. Tanner's death, I was shocked but not really upset. I never really liked the teacher. I knew that Damon had something to do with this so I was quickly trying to find Stefan. I found him heading towards Elena who was with Jeremy and her body was shaking.

"Stefan!" I call and Stefan stops in his place and turns to me. I quickly got over to him and saw the look on his face and I knew instantly what happened, "Damon killed him, didn't he?" I ask this in a whisper.

Stefan just nods and we stay quiet for a moment as if to silently mourn Mr. Tanner's death. Once that was over with, we quickly got Elena. We invited Jer to come with us but he denied us and left to go god knows where. Now we were at Elena's car but I was inside Elena's car. I silently watch Stefan and Elena talk outside. Once they were done talking Elena got into the car and starts the engine.

"Do you want me to drive?" I ask Elena quietly.

Elena doesn't look at me and she shakes her head, "No…I'm fine to drive."

I nod and don't say anything else for the rest of the ride. When I got home, I was immediately enveloped in a tight hug by Lizzie and Max.

"Rowen! Thank god, you're alright!" Lizzie cries as she hugs me tight.

I squeeze them back just as tightly. "Yeah, I'm fine," I whisper as Lizzie and Max pull back from the hug.

I look at them and they both looked terrified and that was the last thing I wanted.

"I'm going to go to bed," I tell them quietly. "It's been a long day."

Lizzie and Max nod and they takes turns kissing me on the forehead. I give both of them one last hug before I head upstairs to try and get some sleep.

* * *

 **TBC...**

 **In...**

 **Family Ties...**

 **Review? ;)**


	4. Family Ties

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Vampire Diaries and never will because if I did, the show would have ended after season three. But I do own Rowen Matthews and any other characters that I make up.

 **A/N:** Thanks for the reviews! Here's the Family Ties episode! Enjoy!

* * *

 ** _Third person POV…_**

Stefan awoke from his sleep with a sharp as he quickly sat up in bed, his chest going up and down frantically because of the dream he just had. But it wasn't long until he hears a familiar voice.

"Bad dream?" the voice which was clearly Damon asks, the smirk clear in her his voice, who was sitting in a chair near Stefan's bed. "Do you know how easy it was to get into your head just now? You really need some human blood. It might even the playing field." Stefan didn't say anything since he was still trying to catch his breath while Damon continues speaking with a smirk on his face, "Football reference. Too soon."

Stefan didn't waste any time in zooming over to the table that was in his room which had papers on it and a letter cutter. He grabs the cutter and throws it at Damon. The cutter hit Damon right in the stomach but the older Salvatore didn't look at all hurt by this. He only just looks down at the cutter and easily took it out without a wince.

"Alright, I deserved that," Damon says with another smirk as he stood up from the chair.

Stefan glares at his brother as he continues speaking,

"But … I just wanted to let you know, they caught the culprit. The animal responsible for killing couch Tanner and all those other people."

The glare fell from Stefan's face and was replaced with a confused look. "What are you talking about?" he demands.

"It was a mountain lion," Damon says not really answering Stefan's question. "Really big one." He uses his hands to show how big the animal was even though it clearly wasn't an animal but after doing this, he let his hands fall and he smirks at Stefan. "It's all over the news. "Deadly beast captured. All is well in Mystic Falls."

Stefan was still confused, "Why would you cover your tracks?"

"I've decided to stay a while." Damon smirks again as he starts to twirl the letter opener in his hand, "And I'm having way to fun being here. Oh and BTW I've decided not to go after Rowen since clearly my advances aren't working so my next target is _Elena_." His smirk deepens when he says Elena's name.

Stefan's glare returns but it was even harder this time. "It's not going to work with her either Damon," he growls. "I gave her vervain too."

"Eh, oh well," Damon says with a shrug of his shoulder but he still had a smirk on his face as he got closer to Stefan. "I don't have to compel her because believe it or not, _some girls_." Stefan didn't miss the way his brother emphasize the words 'some girls' as if to mention Rowen without having to say it, "Just can't resist my good looks, my style and my charm and my unflinching ability to listen to Taylor Swift."

Damon quickly stabs Stefan in the stomach when he finished and Stefan groans loudly as he falls to his knees. This hit clearly hurt him more than it did with Damon. He manages to look up at his brother who's looking down at the place where he stabbed him at and there was blood all over his shirt. Damon looks at Stefan with a fake applaud look on his face.

"This is john Varvatos, dude," he says. "Dick move." With that he leaves Stefan who took out the letter cutter.

Standing up and lifting up his shirt, he watches as the stab wound quickly disappears.

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

I sat at the kitchen table, watching the news. Logan Fell was informing everyone that the beast who had been attacking people had been caught. But somehow I knew that Damon had covered his tracks…but I didn't really know the answer for the why he did that. I mean, he didn't do it when he killed that young couple and when he attacked Vicki so why with Mr. Tanner. I knew then and there that I would never understand Damon Salvatore.

"Ro-wen." I hear Lizzie say my name in sing song voice and I look up and sure enough there was my sister in law who had just entered the kitchen.

I took notice to the dress that she had in her hands and I look back at her, confusion all over my face.

"What's the dress for?" I ask.

"Well, there's this thing that all the founder's host and it's today and I bought this dress for you to wear to it," Lizzie says excitedly. "Isn't it exciting?" She let out a small squeal as she sat down the dress on the table right in front of me.

I took a close look at the dress and it was defiantly the kind of dress I would wear. I assume that I would have to have a date to this thing. There was no one that I would like to go with and besides, I didn't want to go.

"It's great Lizzie, but I don't really want to go," I tell her and Lizzie immediately looks disappointed. I wince at the sight of it, "Sorry."

"Oh it's alright," Lizzie says in a sad voice as she sat down in the chair next to me. "You don't have to go. I just thought that you would enjoy going." She changes the subject as she looks over at the TV which was still playing the news and Logan Fell was still talking, "Did you know that Elena's aunt dated him in high school?"

"Really?" There was surprise in my voice. Logan Fell didn't seem like the kind of guy Jenna would go for but what did I know. I didn't even know Jenna that well so how would I know…

Lizzie nods, "Yeah. Jenna left Mystic Falls because of him." Her face darkens, "He was such an asshole to her."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Did you date him too?" I ask after I finish laughing.

Lizzie immediately shakes her head and sticks her tongue, "EW … of course not. He's defiantly not my type."

I laugh again but after that, we didn't say much. The only noise that was in the kitchen was the news. But I broke the silence by saying,

"Hey do you mind if I go to the Grill for lunch?"

"No of course not." Lizzie smiles, "You go have fun. Is anyone else going too?"

I shake my head, "No. Just me." Lizzie nods and I change the subject, "So I'll see you later?"

"Of course."

I give a Lizzie a kiss on the cheek before I leave the kitchen to go get dressed to go to the Grill.

* * *

 _ **Third person POV…**_

Caroline Forbes stood in front of her mirror that was in her bedroom as she tries on this yellow dress, one of the dresses that she thought would be perfect for the founder's party.

"No yellow." Came the voice of Damon Salvatore who was lying on Caroline's bed surprisingly reading the last Twilight book. He flips a page of the book and continues, "Jaundice. Go for the blue."

"But I don't like the blue." Caroline pouts at Damon through the mirror as she pulls over the top of the dress over her white bra.

"Well I do," Damon says bluntly, not looking up from the book. "And if I'm gonna be your date—"

Caroline interrupts him quickly as she brushes invisible lint from the dress she had on, "You cannot be my date. My mother is going to be there, and she's a very proud gun owner." She smirks to herself.

"I went through a lot of trouble to make sure this party wasn't canceled. It's very important I be there." Caroline turns to him and Damon immediately compels her, "Please take me."

There was an instant response from Caroline, "You should come to the founder's party with me."

"Not if you're wearing that dress."

Caroline pulls off the dress and goes to her closet to pick a new one while Damon spoke up again as he rolls his eyes.

"What's so special about this Bella girl? Edward is so whipped."

"You gotta read the first book first. It won't make any sense if you don't." Caroline was back in front of her mirror when she finished saying this and she slips her feet into the dress and starts to pull it up over her.

"Ah, I miss Anne Rice," Damon says mostly to himself. "She was _so_ on it."

"How come you don't sparkle?" Caroline questions curiously as she fixes the top before moving her hair to the front of her.

"Because I live in the real world, where vampires burn in the sun."

"Yeah, but you go in the sun."

Damon flashes the large ring on his finger. "I have a ring," he says before moving his hand back to grasp the book again. "It protects me. Long story."

Caroline starts to touch the bite marks that was on her shoulder and neck. She trances the one on her shoulder as she asks Damon,

"Will these bites turn me into a vampire?"

Damon sat down the book and looks at her, "It's more complicated than that." He continues speaking as Caroline starts to walk towards him slowly, "You'd have to feed on my blood, then die, and then feed on a human. It's a whole ordeal." He smirks, "This book, by the way has is all wrong."

Caroline lets out a sudden squeal of delight when Damon grabs her and flips her on the bed and he was on top of her and he starts to kiss up and down her neck.

"You can be very sweet when you want to be," Caroline mumbles dreamily as he continues to kiss her neck.

"Yes, I can be sweet," Damon says as he now places small kisses on her cheek before pecking her on the lips. He caresses her face just staring at her.

Caroline bit her bottom lip as she stares in his eyes. "Are you going to kill me?" she whispers her question.

"Mm-hmm, but not yet."

"Why not?"

"Because there's something I need you to do for me."

Caroline smiles dreamily at him and she whispers again affectionately, "Anything."

Damon smirks, "How good are you at getting this little nose." He ran a finger down the slope of her nose when he said the word nose but that only lasted for a minute, "Where it doesn't belong?"

Caroline slowly grins and says in a somewhat smug voice, "Oh, I'm excellent."

Damon made a humming sound as he leans back down and kisses her one last time.

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

I enter the Grill dressed and starving. The outfit I had on was a black short sleeved gypsy shirt, a pair of white low rise skinny jeans which fit very snug around my waist, and a pair of belt buckle black boots. I also had my vervain necklace on and I had my black shoulder bag over my right shoulder. I head over to a table and sit down. Immediately Vicki Donavan appears and I look at her surprised.

"You work here?"

Vicki scoffs, "Duh." I scowl at her but she ignores me. What's her problem? She gets ready to take my order, "What do you want?"

I gave her my order and she left rather quickly. It wasn't long until I got my order on my table and before I could thank Vicki, she left quickly again. Geez, someone was having a bad day tonight. Why did I have a feeling it had something to do with Tyler Lockwood. I shrug my shoulders as I start to eat my food. I was almost done with my food when I heard Matt Donavan's voice.

"Rowen."

I look up and see Matt heading my way. I smile at him once he stops next to my table.

"Hey Matt, how are you?"

Matt smiles back at me, "I'm good. You?"

"Same here." Elena had introduced me to Matt at the football game. Though I knew about Matt – since Caroline told me about him after the first day of school – I didn't meet him until yesterday.

"Can I sit down?" Matt asks me.

I raise my eyebrows at him. He looks like he wants to talk to me about something but I didn't know what.

"Yeah, sure," I finally reply.

"Thanks." He sits down in the chair in front of me and says casually, "So … are you going to founder's party?"

I look at him surprised then shake my head. "I wasn't planning on it. Why?"

"Because I was wondering if you wanted to go with me." At the look on my face, he adds hurriedly, "It doesn't have to be date. We could just go as friends. But its okay if you don't want to.

I stare at him not saying anything. I was glad that he mentioned we could go as friends. He reminded me too much of Joey to think about going on an actually _date_ but I could easily see me and him being friends but that was it. Not only that, I didn't know how Elena would feel about it. Not only that, he could be just asking me to make his ex-jealous.

"This better not be a ploy to get Elena jealous because if it is…" I didn't have time to finish my threat because Matt spoke up quickly.

"It's nothing like that, I promise," he tells me.

I could tell that he was telling the truth by the look in his eyes. Finally I nod.

"Sure, I'll go with you."

"Great." He smiles at me, "I'll pick you up at six."

I nod and tell him that sounds good. Once he left my table, I start to eat again. I didn't notice Bonnie and Caroline entering the Grill…

* * *

 ** _Third person POV…_**

"You're taking Damon to the founder's party?" Bonnie questions her friend as they sit down at a table with an astonished look on her face. "What about me?"

"Go with Elena."

Bonnie gives Caroline a look, "She's asking Stefan."

"Okay. Go by yourself."

Bonnie rolls her eyes at Caroline's response. "Gee, thanks," she says sarcastically to her friend. "What about your mom? Is she okay with you going with Damon?"

Caroline scoffs, "And I'm supposed to care why?"

"He's older sexy danger guy."

Caroline giggles at that and shakes her head at her friend. "Older sexy danger guy," she says amused. "Is that an official witch twitter tweet?"

"No more witch jokes, okay?" Bonnie tells Caroline looking slightly annoyed. "That whole Mr. Tanner prediction thing has me freaked."

"Okay." Her friend changes the subject back to Damon, "And Damon's not dangerous. You know, he just has a lot of issues with his brother. You know, like major, deep rooted drama."

"Like…?" Bonnie presses.

Caroline bites her bottom lip with a hesitant look on her face, "I'm not really supposed to say anything."

"Caroline Forbes, when have you _ever_ kept a secret in your life?"

Caroline relents quickly like Bonnie expected. "Okay," she says as a serious look crosses her face. "But you can't tell Elena."

"No."

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

Once I finished my food, I put down the money on the table and was about to head out when I saw Tyler Lockwood going over to Vicki. My table was near the bar so I could easily see and listen to the conversation. From the corner of my eye, I saw Jeremy sitting at another that was almost close to mine but not really and I could tell that he was listening in on the convo too but unlike him, I didn't look at them so it wouldn't look like I was listening but I really was.

"So what you going to buy me?" I hear him say to Vicki so I knew he was over by her.

There was a scoff.

"Ugh, some class. Oh, your parents are gone. I guess I can be close now."

Well no wonder she was pissed off at Tyler…

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You treat me like _trash_. And I'm sick of it."

"I don't think your trash."

"Really?" Another scoff, "Then who are you taking to the founder's party?"

"Vicki Donavan." His voice sounds amused, "Do you want me to ask you to the founder's party?"

And there was yet another scoff. "No. It'll be stupid and lame."

"True. But it'll be less stupid and lame if you were there."

Now I look over at them and see that Tyler was leaving. Vicki looks to be close to giggling like a little school girl. I internally roll my eyes exasperated. Didn't she realize that she had to ask him to get him to ask her to the party? Jeremy voiced my thought out loud causing Vicki to look at him.

"You realize you had to ask him to ask you, right?" Jeremy looks annoyed while Vicki's eyes narrow at him, the joy gone from her eyes, "You figure if you dress up like a respectable young lady, he'll finally treat you like one?"

"Screw you, Jeremy," Vicki snarls at him angrily. Her eyes flash to mine but I quickly look away. Once I didn't feel her gaze on me anymore, I look back and see her looking at Jeremy as he speaks up, looking at her.

"You know you're making the wrong choice, yet you make it anyway. It's sad."

She just glares at him one last time before she storms away. Jeremy sighs heavily and I get up from my seat and go over to his table.

"You know Jeremy, maybe you should follow your own advice," I tell him softly and he looks at me with a glare.

"You know, you need to stop acting like you know me," he spats at me. "You don't."

"Yeah, I don't," I snap back. "I wouldn't want to get to know you anyway. Because you know what else is _sad_ acting like you have the whole world on your shoulders and that you have no one to turn to because Jeremy, if you haven't noticed you still have your _sister_ and your _aunt_. You should be happy that you still have people to turn to if you _need_ them.

I didn't give him the time to reply because I turn a heel and walk away, feeling Jeremy's gaze following me until I was out of the Grill.

-0-

Once I get back home from the Grill, I go into the kitchen where Lizzie and Max were. Desire was in her high-chair, eating her baby food, which Lizzie was feeding her since the baby couldn't do it herself.

"Desi," I coo and she looks up at me and I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the orange stuff all over her mouth. "Enjoying your food, sweetie."

Desire just made baby noises at me and I smile taking that as a yes. I look at Lizzie and Max who were smiling at me. It kind of looked a little bit freaky.

"Uh, what?" I ask confused to why they were looking at me like that.

Lizzie gives a short laugh and shakes her head at me, "It's nothing Mi. It was just cute." She says obviously referring to the way I was acting towards Desire.

I give them both a weird look but I shrug a couple seconds later. Remembering what I had come into the kitchen for, I tell Lizzie,

"Oh and Lizzie, I decided to go that founder's party thing."

"Really?" Lizzie squeaks out, her eyes sparkling while Max looks over at his wife amused.

I laugh, "Yeah Lizzie, really."

Lizzie squeals as she claps her hands happily, "That's great! What changed your mind?"

"Oh I got a date."

At this, Lizzie squeals even louder, so loud in fact that Max and I had to cover our ears and it also made Desire cry and Max had to pick her up to calm her down.

"Who's taking you?" Lizzie asks in an excited voice.

"Matt Donavan," I tell her. "But it's not really a date. We're just going as friends."

"Why wouldn't you want to go out with him…not as friend?" Lizzie asks with a frown.

"He reminds me too much of my friend Joey," I say. "It would be too weird. Besides that, he's Elena's ex-boyfriend. I haven't had a girl friend before but I know that girl code is completely against dating your friend's ex."

By the look on Lizzie's face, she completely understood.

"Alright," Lizzie says. She grins again, "I'll get your dress from upstairs!"

Before Max and I could say anything, she was already out of the kitchen. Max and I share amused look. My cell-phone starts to ring in my jeans pocket after a minute and I check to see who was calling and it was Elena. I answer the phone quickly,

"Hey Lena."

"So I heard you're going to do the founder's party with Matt," Elena says this so casually that a surprised look crosses my face.

How the heck did she find that out so quickly? … Then again, this was a small town so news travels fast.

"Yeah I am…" I pause for minute before I speak again, "You don't mind, do you? If you're not, I can cancel."

"No Rowen, its fine… Matt and I … were over," Elena tells me in a reassuring voice. "If you want to date him that's fine…I just didn't think you were interested in him?"

"I'm not; we're just going as friends." I laugh, "Matt reminds me too much of my friend Joey so it would be weird to actually date him officially."

"I get that." I somehow knew she was grinning over at her end even though I couldn't see it.

"But anyway," Elena continues. "Bonnie's coming over to get ready for the founder's party with me and I was wondering if you wanted to come over too."

"Yeah, I like that idea," I answer instantly with a grin. "I'll see you there then."

"Okay, bye."

"Bye." I say back before I end the phone call.

As soon as I did that, Lizzie came back into the kitchen with the dress that she showed me this morning in her hands.

"Here's the dress," she says in a sing song voice.

I go over to her and take the dress, smiling at her, "Thanks Lizzie."

She smiles back at me brightly. "You're welcome," she says to me brightly.

"Elena called me and I'm going to go over to her house to get ready for the party," I tell her.

"That sounds great," she says still in a bright voice. "Is Elena going with Stefan?"

I nod, though I didn't really know if she was but I just assume she is. To me Stefan didn't seem like the kind of guy to go to those kind of things but that was just me. But the Salvatores were one of the Founders of Mystic Falls. Stefan probably went to those things all the time back in 1864.

"Yeah, she is," I finally say. I change the subject, "I'm going to go ahead and head on over there."

"Alright." Lizzie grins at me before she pulls me into a tight hug with me still holding the dress. She pulls back a few minutes later and beams at me, "Have fun at the party hun."

"I will." I quickly tell Max bye and give Desire a kiss on the cheek before heading out the door to go to Elena's.

-0-

I get to her house just as Tyler was leaving. I pass him and we didn't say anything to each other but I did see him look at me from the corner of my eye. Elena was still at the front door with Jeremy obviously because she saw me heading over.

"Hey Rowen," she greets me brightly with a hug.

I hug back and pull back from it a minute later. I look over at Jeremy.

"Hey Jeremy."

He just gives me a curt nod before he walks back upstairs leaving me alone with Elena.

"You look happy-ish," I comment as I follow my friend into the house. I grin and wink at her, "Does it have something to do with a certain Salvatore?"

Elena blushes but nods with a grin of her own, "Yeah. And yeah I am…ish. I just have a really good feeling about tonight."

"That's really great, I hope it is for you," I tell her.

"Thanks." She changes the subject, "Bonnie will be here soon. You can take your dress upstairs in my room; we're going to be getting dressed in there."

"Sounds good."

Once she tells me where her room is upstairs, I head up there and go into Elena's bedroom. I sat down the dress on the bed before I go back downstairs. As soon as I was down, the doorbell rang.

"Can you get that Rowen? It's Bonnie!" I hear Elena call to me from I guess the living room.

"Yeah! I got Lena!" I quickly go to the front door and open it and sure enough there was Bonnie. She doesn't look surprised to me so I guess Elena called her to tell her I was going to be coming over too.

"Hey Rowen," Bonnie greets me brightly, coming inside the house to give me a hug.

I hug her back before I let go so I can close the front door.

"So…" I start off a conversation as we start to walk towards the living room, slowly, "Who are you taking to the party?"

"Myself, I was planning on going with Caroline but she's going with Damon."

I stop in my place at that and Bonnie looks back at me confused.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"Nothing," I mutter before I repeat myself, this time more clearly.

Bonnie's look of confusion turns into an odd one but she quickly shrugs it off. Ten minutes later, I was sitting with Bonnie at a table that was near the kitchen and she was going through her bag, taking out nail polish while Elena went to go get a paper towel.

"Delicate flower vs. Naughty vixen?" Bonnie says as she holds up two bottles of nail polish.

"Tough call," Elena muses as she thinks about it.

"We could just mix them," I suggest.

Bonnie grins at me, "That sounds perfect." I grin back at her and she then says to Elena as she heads over to us, "Look at you, getting all pretty for your date." She teases her friend as she sits down, "You seem happy-ish."

Elena and I look at each other and laugh because I had said the same thing when I saw her.

Bonnie looks at us confused, "What's so funny?"

"I said the same thing to Elena when I got here," I tell her, holding back another loud laugh.

"Oh." She laughs causing Elena and me to laugh again. Once we finish laughing, Elena replies to Bonnie's question,

"I am…ish. Tonight's going to be a good night, I can feel it." Then she says in a serious voice, "But don't let that stop you from telling me whatever it is you want to tell me as soon as you walked in the door."

I look confused as Bonnie winces.

"What if I tell you in the morning?" She says quickly, not meeting Elena in the eye anymore. "I don't want to ruin the night."

"Bonnie, out with it," Elena snaps softly.

Bonnie hesitates but then sighs. "Okay," she says. "But it has to go in the vault because Caroline would kill me if it gets back to Damon that she squealed."

I flinch at the mention of the oldest Salvatore and I think to myself, 'Well she won't kill you if Damon gets to her first.' The thought of one of my friends dying sent shivers down my spine. I snap back into attention when I hear Bonnie speak again.

"Apparently Stefan has a very interesting back story."

Elena nods, "Uh-huh."

Bonnie bites her bottom lip for a moment before asking, "Do you know what happened with his ex-girlfriend Katherine?"

"I know that they both dated her and that's why they have issues."

I stay silent as I listen to them talk.

"Yeah, they both dated her, only she chose Damon," Bonnie says and Elena looks astonished but didn't look like she believed what she was saying. "And that drove Stefan mad, so he did horrible things to try and break them apart. He manipulated Katherine. He filled her head with all these lies until it finally worked and she turned against Damon."

"He's totally lying," I finally say with a scoff, taking offense to it, like any normal person would do if someone was making lies about one of your friends. "That doesn't sound like Stefan at _all_."

"Yeah," Elena agrees glancing at me before looking back at Bonnie. "And besides, that sounds like one person's side of the story…meaning Damon's."

I nod while Bonnie tells her softly,

"I just wanted to let you know."

"Anyway, his past relationships are none of my business," Elena says.

Bonnie had started to do her nails when she said, "Unless he's a calculating, manipulative liar. That is your business."

"Stefan is _none_ of those things."

"Yeah? How do you know?" Bonnie counters.

Elena doesn't say anything only looks away from her friend. I pat her on the shoulder in comfort. Internally, I shake my head in disgust. God, what was wrong with that due? Making lies about his brother just to get Elena and Stefan to break up. It was sick and wrong. I stop thinking about it because it would only make me more pissed off if I continue to think about it.

* * *

 ** _Third person POV…_**

"Do they still wear ties to this thing?"

Stefan looks up at the sound of his brother's voice and sees Damon going over to the mirror without a shirt on.

"Why are you even going to the Founder's Party?" Stefan asks him annoyed but not really.

"It's only fitting," Damon answers with a shrug and a smirk as he took out two ties and looks into the mirror. "We were at the first one, remember?"

"I think it's better if we don't draw attention to ourselves."

Damon looks over his shoulder at his brother with a smirk still on his face, "So you should stay here. I'll see to it Elena has a good."

Stefan rolls his eyes as he takes a drink of the scotch that he put in a class before his brother came in. Damon took notice to this and he teases,

"My goodness, I've driven you to drink."

"Can't seem to rid myself of you. What else am I supposed to do, besides go about living my life?"

"Go about living life," Damon mocks as he turns to face his younger brother. "See, therein lies your eternal struggle." He smirks at him, "You're dead dude. Get over it." He then holds up one of the ties up to his brother, "What do you think?"

Stefan just sighs in response.

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

We were now in Elena's room, still getting ready for the founder's party. My hair was already done. I decided to keep it down but put curls in it making it look all full and pretty. Suddenly Elena's phone starts ringing and she goes over to the phone, picks it up, answers it, and she talks into it.

"Hello?" she says. "Hi Mrs. Lockwood." She frowns over whatever Mrs. Lockwood said over the phone, "What do you mean? It is? Are you sure? Cause I saw it." It was then a dark look crosses her face and she says into the phone in a tight but calm voice, "Let me check. Mm-hmm. I will find it and bring it. Okay. Bye."

Elena hangs up the phone and stomps out of the room, passing Bonnie who asks her what's wrong. But she was already out of the room.

I share a look with Bonnie before I decide on following her to see what was wrong. I go over to Jeremy's room which was across from Elena's and I peer inside only to see Elena smack Jeremy in the head.

"Ahh!" Jeremy cries out in shock as he took off these big headphones. He glares at Elena as he says, "God, what now?"

Elena's hands were on her hips and I had no doubt there was an angry look on her face.

"The pocket watch," she says in a tight, angry voice. "Where is it?"

"What watch?"

"The one you stole from Mom's box!" she exclaims to him through gritted teeth. "Look, Mrs. Lockwood just called me, _freaking_ out. It was on the list, Jeremy. And she can't find it, and she thinks she's the one who lost it."

"Maybe she did. Maybe Tyler took it."

"Don't even play that card. Jeremy, you took it." Her voice was still tight and angrily as she says, "If I go online, am I going to find it on eBay? Is that how you pay for your pot?"

Getting annoyed with her yelling at him, he snaps,

"Screw you!" He stands up from the chair and stomps over a spot near the bedroom door so I quickly hide behind the wall, not wanting to be caught listening in. There was a small smack so I guess he gave her the watch and he snaps again, "I would never sell this, okay?"

"Then why did you take it?"

"Because it's supposed to be mine. Dad said it goes to the first born son. His father gave it to him, and now what?" He sounds like he's about to cry but I knew that he wouldn't. He wanted to be strong, not a weak boy who lost his parents. I sigh sadly to myself, feeling slightly bad for snapping at him earlier today.

"And he was going to give it to you." Elena's voice was sad as she says this.

"Yeah."

"Look, Jeremy…" Elena sighs, "It's still yours, okay? Mom promised Mrs. Lockwood." Her voice turns desperate as she asks him, "What do you want me to do?"

"Just take it and get out."

With a sad look on my face, I quickly go back to Elena's room before she left her brother's room.

-0-

Once I was all done getting dressed over at Elena's house, I went back home to wait for Matt to come pick me which wasn't very long. I was sitting in the living room with Lizzie when the doorbell rang.

Lizzie let out a small squeal when she heard it and quickly grabs her camera – which I let out a small groan of embarrassment when I see her do this – before she stands up from the couch. Geez, she was more excited about this than I was…

"Come on, let's not keep your date waiting," Lizzie says to me with a wink.

I sigh and stood up from the couch before I follow my sister in law out of the living room. Once at the front door, I open it and there was Matt. I had to admit he looked good in a suit.

"Wow," Matt says in awe as he looks at me. This causes me to blush deeply and he must have seen it because he laughs which only makes me blush deeper.

"You look amazing Rowen," he tells me.

I giggle nervously as I rub the back of my head, "Thank you. You look amazing too."

"I try," he jokes.

"Aw, you guys are so cute!" Lizzie squeals and she holds up the camera as she says in a happy voice, "Let's take a picture!"

"Lizzie, no pictures," I groan as I cover my eyes with my hand and Matt laughs beside me.

"Please." Lizzie pouts, "Just one."

I move my hand from my eyes and I found that she was giving me the puppy dog pout. I groan again.

"Fine, just one."

Lizzie grins.

-0-

"Sorry about that," I apologize to Matt once we were out of the house. "She's just really excited about me going on a date. As you can tell." I laugh.

Matt laughs along with me before he says, "It's cool." Once we got to his trunk, he opens the passenger door for me and I climb in with some help from him.

I buckle up and look at Matt who just got into the car and he looks over at me.

"Ready?"

I nod and he starts the car. As he drove down the road, I couldn't help but wonder what was going to happen at the Founder's Party and I hoped that nothing bad would happen…

-0-

 ** _Lockwood mansion…_**

"Oh hello, Matt." Carole Lockwood sounds surprised to see him when we came up to her. I guess she didn't know Matt was coming to the party. Maybe it wasn't his thing like Stefan's. "I didn't know you were coming to the party."

"Yeah I decided to come." He gushers to me. "This is my date, Rowen Matthews."

"Hi Mrs. Lockwood." I wave at her as I smile politely.

"Oh yes, your Max's little sister."

I nod. "Yeah that's me."

Carole smiles back at me. "Well we're pleased to have you with us." I just nod in response and she gushers inside the house. "Come on in then."

Matt and I enter the Lockwood home as she went to greet the next couple in line. A little while away from us, I saw Elena and Stefan and they were heading off in a different direction. It was then I felt someone staring at me and I look over to where the bar is and there's Damon Salvatore staring at me and Matt, his eyes flashes with slight jealousy as he glances down at Matt and I's connected hands. I smirk as I look over at Matt.

"Hey, I'm going to get a drink, do you want one?" I ask him.

He shakes his head. "No, I'm good."

"Okay. I'll be right back." When he nods at me, I go over to the bar and stand beside Damon who instantly speaks to me once I'm by him.

"That's your date?" He scoffs as he looks back at Matt who was talking to someone I didn't know.

I smirk at him. "Yeah, why? Are you jealous?"

Damon scoffs again as he rolls his eyes at me. "Of course not Buffy. I'm just saying you could do so much better than someone like him." He sneers out the words 'someone like him' as he looks back at Matt.

"Like you?" I retort as I give my own little scoff. "Yeah like that will _ever_ happen. I wouldn't go on a date with you even if you were the last man on Earth." I look over at him only to see he was smirking at me.

"Aw, you don't mean that Buffy," he tells me in a teasing voice as he runs a hand down my arm.

I smack his hand away and glare at him. "Of course I do. You're just too much of an idiot to realize that."

"You're hilarious," Damon tells me in a sarcastic voice.

I smile cheekily. "Oh I know. See you around Damon…or maybe not." I wink at him and pat him on the shoulder before I stalk away back over to Matt who introduces me to the person he was talking to. It turned out to be Sheriff Forbes, Liz Forbes who was Caroline's mother and she apparently went to school with my mom and dad.

"It was nice meeting you Sheriff Forbes." I smile at her as we shake hands.

She smiles back at me. "It's nice to meet you too Rowen. Tell your brother I said hi."

"I will." After Matt says goodbye to Liz, he asked me if I wanted to dance I said yes. Once we did that, we mingle with other people, people I didn't know but Matt and by the time that was over with, it was nighttime. I was having a really good time surprising enough. Matt was a really good date.

"Do you want to look at founder's stuff?" Matt asks me as he leads me through the crowd that we were in. "Should be interesting."

I smile at him. "Sounds great."

Once we got over there, we saw Stefan and Elena and went over to them only to see that they were looking at something. The brunette smiles when she sees us and her smile widens at the sight of my hand being connected with Matt's.

I give Stefan a smile in greeting before I look back at Elena. "What are you looking at?" I ask as I nod to the thing that she and Stef were looking at.

"At the first guest registry," she replies. She didn't look away from it so she misses the tense look on Stefan's face but I did notice it but before I could even say anything, she began to read it. "'The founding families in Mystic Falls welcomes you to the inaugural founder's council celebration." She looks amazed then. "Wow, look at all these familiar names—Sheriff William Forbes, Major Benjamin Lockwood." It was then a shocked look appears on her face. "Is that Damon Salvatore?" she glances at Stefan still looking shocked. "And Stefan Salvatore?"

I try to change the subject but I _could_ try, I hear Damon's voice coming up from behind us.

"The original Salvatore brothers," he says as he comes up to us with Caroline by his side. He seems to smirk at Stefan but his eyes meet mine so I'm not sure if the smirk was for me or for his brother. "Our ancestors. Tragic story, actually." He looks like he was about to go on but Stefan quickly intercepts him.

"We don't need to bore them with stories of the past," he says looking at Damon intensely.

Elena looks to him surprise in her features. "It's not being Stefan. I'd love to hear more about your family."

Sensing the tenseness in the group, Caroline says in a blunt tone, "Well, I'm bored. I want to dance." She pouts at the man beside her. "But Damon won't dance with me."

"Mm-mmm."

Caroline looks at Elena. "Can I borrow your date?"

"Why?" I say before my friend could respond. "Did Damon ask you to do that?" My eyes narrow at Damon as I ask this.

"No." She sounds surprised. "Why would he do that?"

I shrug. "Eh, I don't know. I'm sure he has his reasons."

"So can I?" Caroline looks back at Elena who sputters out,

"Oh, uh…"

"I don't really dance," Stefan says for his girlfriend.

"You wouldn't mind, would you, Elena?" the blonde asks her friend.

She looks like she's about to say no but she gives in. "It's up to Stefan."

"Well sorry, I'm gonna take no for an answer." Caroline tugs the younger Salvatore away leaving us to stay in silence. An awkward silence.

"I'm going to get a drink," Elena mutters breaking the silence.

"I'll go with you." Matt offers his arm to his ex-girlfriend who smiles at him before she takes his arm.

"I'll catch up to you," I tell my two friends.

Matt nods and he gives me a kiss on the cheek before he leaves with Elena leaving me alone with Damon who speaks up as soon as they were gone and I turn to face him.

"I want to apologize to you for being a world class jerk to you the other night…" he starts off.

I scoff at that as I cross my arms over my chest and look at the older Salvatore with narrowed eyes. "Just for the other night?" I say in an incredulous tone of voice. You've been an ass since we met."

"Right, I'm sorry about that too."

I didn't believe him. "Look, just hurry up and say what you want." I wasn't in the mood for any games and you could tell by the tone of my voice when I say this. "Matt's waiting for me and you know as well as I do that Stefan doesn't like it when we talk for very long. Not that he should be worried since I can kill you even with a wood pencil."

Damon looks amused at my statement but it falls when he sees that I was being completely serious. Of course I was, I was vampire hunter for a reason. He changes the subject.

"Look about me and my brother … my therapist says I'm…acting out, trying to punish Stefan…"

I look confused obviously wondering where he was going with this. "What are you talking about?"

"It's all in the past." He waves it off. "I don't even want to bring it up. Let's just say that the men in the Salvatore family have been cursed with sibling rivalry."

What did that have to do with anything? Just because they were _cursed_ with it, didn't mean that they had to follow in those footsteps? And besides, Damon was talking about him and Stefan. I still had no idea why he was telling _me_ this. I snap out of my thoughts at the sound of Damon's voice.

"And it all started with the original Salvatore brothers."

"You know, you're talking about yourselves, right?" I point out.

He shrugs in response. "Well, maybe yes and maybe no."

"What kind of answer is that?" I ask annoyed.

"But anyway…" he says ignoring me and I force myself not to growl. "The Salvatore name was practically royalty in this town. Until the war. There was a battle here—"

I interrupt him. "The battle of willow creek, right?"

"Right."

"We talked about this in class," I say but my eyebrows knot together in confusion and I saw a hint of a smile on Damon's face. "At least I think we did…" I tried to think and it didn't take me long to remember. "Oh right… Confederate soldiers fired on a church with civilians inside…"

"But what the history books left out was the people that were killed, they weren't there by accident. They were believed to be union sympathizers." He gushers for me to follow him over to a small model of the church he was talking about and I do as he continues speaking. "So some of the founders on the confederacy side back then wanted them rounded up and burned alive."

It was funny that he was able to keep me interested in what he was talking about. I guess he said in a way that was interesting and it was probably was like that because he lived in that time period.

"Stefan and Damon had someone they loved very much in that church," he says, his eyes gazing over as if he was remembering that day. Was he talking about Katherine? "And when they went to rescue them, they were shot. Murdered in cold blood."

"Are you talking about Katherine?" I ask and I watch as he tenses at the question but there was surprise in his eyes. I guess he didn't know that I knew about her and it answered my question about if he was talking about Katherine. "Yeah, I know about her. You and Stefan both had feelings for her. Said you blame him for her death and that you've been making his life miserable ever since then."

"What else has he told you?" Damon breaks his silence through gritted teeth.

"That's it," I tell him honestly. When he didn't say anything, I continue in a soft and honest voice "And it's awful that you and he had to go through that, but you guys have to deal with that on your own. I can't—I won't get in the middle of it. But I really do hope you can work it out." Taking a chance, I place my hand on his shoulder and he looks up surprised by the contact. His eyes pierce into mine as if he was searching for something. After a few minutes, he spoke up in a murmur as he continues to look in my eyes.

"I hope so too."

I give his shoulder a small squeeze before I remove my hand. After that, we just stare at each other for a moment. It didn't take me long to realize what I was doing. I clear my throat as I glance away from his piercing blue eyes.

"We should go," I mummer. I walk out of there quickly with him right behind me, his eyes on my back. I ignore his staring as best as I could.

-0-

"What did we miss?" Damon asks as we met up with Elena, Matt, Caroline, and Stefan who looks at me curiously obviously wondering what happened between me and Damon. My eyes answer his question. They say 'don't worry about it'. He frowns for a moment (and I'm thinking, _he's gonna worry about it anyway_ ) before it disappears as he looks at Damon.

"We were just chatting," he says. He offers his brother the drink in his hand. "Drink, Damon."

"No, thanks, I'll pass." And the two brothers share intense looks. I frown to myself. What was that about?

Elena decides to speak up right then as she looks at Stefan with soft eyes. "Stefan, do you have another dance in you?"

He smiles at her, a soft look in his eyes as well. "Absolutely."

They went off onto the dance which we were all standing by. As soon as they were dancing, Matt offers me his hand with a smile on his face and I take it smiling back as I let him lead me on the dance floor. As he leads me away, I glance at Damon and Caroline who are standing next to each other. Again there was a slight jealousy in his eyes as he looks at me and Matt. I met his eyes for just a second before my date and I were on the dance floor. I wrap my arms around Matt's shoulders while he wraps his arms around my waist and we start swaying to the music.

* * *

 ** _Third person POV…_**

"They both look so cute together," Caroline murmurs to Damon with a smile as she stares at Stefan and Elena _and_ Rowen and Matt.

"Don't talk please," he snaps at her with an annoyed look on his face while staring at Matt and Rowen. He didn't even know why he was so _jealous_. He knew this was the emotion he was feeling. Though he had his emotions turned off, didn't mean he couldn't tell which feeling was which. But he had no reason to be. He had to remember what he was here for. He was here for _Katherine_ , not to get jealous of some human _vampire_ hunter.

Caroline sighs as she glances at Damon from the corner of eye and she takes a sip of her wine, not knowing that it was laced with vervain…

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

Matt and I danced for a while. I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on with Stefan and Elena, who were arguing. It was only when Elena stormed off that I snap back into attention. I look at Stefan who was now standing alone.

"Excuse me, I'll be right back," I tell Matt.

Without waiting for a reply, I went over to Stefan. "What's going on? Why did Elena run away?"

He didn't say anything.

"Stefan? Come on, tell me." I press as I rest a hand on his shoulder, concern in my eyes. He was my friend; he was my _best_ friend even if we didn't know each other that other.

"Elena's mad at me," he replies as he pulls me into a dance. He didn't meet my eyes. "She wants to know about Katherine. But I can't tell her without telling her I'm a vampire."

"Tell her," I tell him softly causing him to finally meet my eyes. "She'll understand Stefan… and besides if you put off telling her… she's going to be mad at you for not telling her sooner."

He looks pained. "I can't…"

"You can't or you won't?" I demand as I raise my eyebrows at him.

" _I can't._ "

"Then it's going to bite you in the ass," I say. A serious look crosses my face. "If she finds out about this some other way than you _telling_ her and you hurt her… let's just say, I have a stake in my purse and I know how to use it."

He looks frightened and normally I would laugh at this (I mean seriously a vampire being scare of some human, it was pretty funny) but I was being serious so I couldn't laugh.

"Okay…"

"Good." I flash him a smile before I go back to Matt who was waiting for me. "Hey…" My date turns to me. "I need to find Elena… she's going through something with Stefan."

"What's wrong with her?" Concern in on his features and I couldn't blame him. This was his ex-girlfriend I was talking about and he still cared about her. I could tell.

"It's nothing big," I lie. "I'll be back soon." I give him a quick kiss on the cheek before I go off to find Elena.

After searching for a while, I still couldn't find her. But I did find Bonnie who was staring intently at a candle and I knew she had probably seen Elena before me so I decide to ask her where she was. I tap her shoulder and she jumps, turning around quickly with her hands up as if she had been doing something bad. But when she sees it's me, her hands go down and she looks sheepish.

"Rowen, hey."

I gave her a confused look. "Is something wrong?"

"No, there's nothing. I was just…"She glances back at the candle for a second before she looks back at me and she shakes her head. "Nevermind."

"Okay…" I say in a slow voice. Then I remember what I came up here for. "Do you know where Elena is?"

"Yeah, I think she's in the powder room," she answers quickly.

I frown. Something was going on with her and I knew it. From the look in her eyes that was how I knew. But I knew she probably wouldn't tell me what was going on so I nod.

"Okay. Thanks." I go off to find Elena missing the frightened look on Bonnie's face when she saw that she had lit all of the candles.

-0-

I had just got to the powder room when Elena rushed out of it with a pissed off look on her face.

"Elena!" I call but she didn't hear me.

I ran after her, all the way outside. I just got behind her when she goes over to Damon who was out on the steps going up them and she pushes him as hard as she can.

"There is something seriously wrong with you!" she growls. "You stay away from _Caroline_."

A look came on Damon's face as if he had just realized something. It was the same time that I did too. Elena had seen the bite marks on Caroline's neck. Dammit! I thought Stefan was handling it. I felt bad instantly.

"Or I will go straight to her mother, the _Sheriff._ You got it? Stay away from her." Elena ran off then to find Stefan probably leaving me alone with Damon.

He looks at me and he looks mad.

"You told her, didn't you?" He takes a step towards me but I took a step back, holding my hands in the surrender pose.

"Chill dude." His jaw twitches when I call him 'dude'. "I didn't say anything about it. She found out herself. Maybe you should do better at hiding those bite marks."

He gives me a glare and I knew he was going to do something stupid.

"Don't do something stupid, Damon Salvatore," I warn him in a serious voice. "I mean it, don't."

He doesn't say anything but he glares at me some more before he stalked off. Probably to find Caroline and hurt her.

Well that wasn't gonna happen… I pull out a stake from my purse that I had and went in the direction that Damon went. Hopefully I could get there before he did something to hurt her.

But I didn't get there in time. I got there just as he sunk his teeth into Caroline's neck.

"No!" I scream as I ran over there as fast as I could. But it was too late. Caroline fell to the ground. "Care!" I fall to my knees in front of my blonde friend and I look up at Damon with a glare but I notice that he didn't look so good and the glare fell from my face and concern I shouldn't be feeling came over me. Before I could ask, he fell to the ground letting out a 'what the hell?'

"Damon, what's—what's wrong?"

"Vervain," he chokes out. "Vervain, help me."

"Don't."

I hear Stefan's voice and look up from Damon to see that he was heading our way.

"What did you do to him?" I demand and anger (another feeling I shouldn't be feeling) flashes through me.

Stefan looks surprised at the anger in my voice but he didn't voice his surprise out loud. He sighs as he looks at Damon who was barely hanging in there.

"Since I couldn't spike his drink with vervain, I spiked hers."

I look to Damon who wasn't moving now so I knew he fainted while Stefan looks at Caroline and checks on her before he looks back at me.

"Go back to the party," he tells me.

"But—"I glance at Damon again and another feeling of not wanting to leave him came over me. I shook my head internally. Damn…he was getting to me. I couldn't let him to do that. I let out a deep breath and nod. "Okay, but I'm going to call you later."

He nods and he blurs out of there with Damon leaving me alone with Caroline.

I shook her shoulder gently. "Care, wake up."

She groans as she sits up and her eyes flutter open. "Rowen?" she croaks out.

"Yes, it's me."

Her body started shaking. "Damon—"She sobbed.

"I know…shh." I pull Caroline into a comforting hug. While I hug her, I notice something shiny on the ground. Keeping one of my arms around a sobbing Caroline, I reach out to grab the thing I found and I peer at it. It was a crystal necklace. What was Caroline doing with this?

"What's this?" I ask my blonde friend who stopped sobbing and looks at me with teary eyes. I show her the necklace and she sobers up.

"It's…it's nothing." She snatches the necklace from me and shoves it into a dress pocket. Her body was still shaking even though she had stopped sobbing so I knew it was not _nothing_ like she said it was.

But I didn't say anything about it but I do nod. I stood up, taking Caroline with me since she was in my arms. As I began to lead her way her body was still shaking. She was taking this bad and I couldn't blame her. It was then that Elena came up to us looking relived.

"There you are," she says to Caroline. "I've been looking everywhere for you. Are you okay?" When she didn't say anything, she looks at me and I shook my head with a sad look on my face and she frowns. "What happened?"

Before I could say anything, Caroline speaks, managing to get her voice steady but not very well and her body was still shaking too.

"I'm fine," she says.

"No, you're shaking. Caroline—what—"

"It's nothing!" she exclaims but then she breaks into sobs and I gently gave her to Elena so she could comfort her, knowing she could comfort her more than I could.

As she comforts her friend, I glance at the spot where Damon once was for a moment before I left to go back to Matt.

* * *

 ** _Third person POV…_**

Once the party was over, all of the founder's members gather in the counsel room and wait for Major Lockwood.

"Thank you for staying so late," he says as he enters the room.

Liz nods and looks at Carole. "Did you get the Gilbert watch?"

She shook her head. "She claims it's packed away with her parents' things."

Since he was going to have lunch with Jenna, Logan speaks up causing everyone to look at him. "I can get it."

Liz nods. "Good, we're gonna need it."

"Are you sure?" Mr. Lockwood asks, looking over at her.

The Sheriff forces herself not to roll her eyes. "5 bodies drained of blood? I'm certain."

"They've come back…" Logan agrees with a serious look on his face.

* * *

 ** _Rowen's POV…_**

Once the party was over, Matt took me back home and we kissed each other goodnight (on the cheeks! Mind out of the gutters people!). I quickly say goodbye to Matt and go back inside the house where I was met with the sight of Lizzie.

"Did you have fun?" she asks me chirpily.

"Yeah it was," I reply. And it really was not including everything that happened with Caroline.

"Good." She smiles at me. "Now go on to bed, it's late."

I nod and go upstairs. I immediately go to my room and close the door behind me before I took out my cell phone to call Stefan.

As he answers, I ask, "What did you do with Damon?"

He sighs over the end of the phone. "I put him in the cellar that we have here at the boarding house."

"For how long?" When he didn't say anything, I ask again in a more serious voice. "For how long?"

"As long as it takes." Was his vague answer and it was tense.

I nod even though he couldn't see it. "Okay…I'm going to come over there on Monday." He makes a sort of protesting sound and I roll my eyes. "I'm not gonna take no for an answer Stefan."

He sighs. "Fine, see you then." He hangs up the phone and I pull the phone away from my ear, looking down at it, shaking my head. With a sigh, I went to go brush my teeth before I got ready to go to bed and this made me miss the black crow that was watching me from the window.

* * *

 **TBC...**

 **In...**

 **You're Undead to Me...**

 **Review? ;)**


End file.
